71 


THE  NEW 
HORTICULTURE 

H.  M.  STRINGFELLOW 


AGRIC.  DEPT. 


THE  NEW   HORTICULTURE 


H.  M.   STRINGFELLOW 


THE   NEW 
HORTICULTURE 


BY 

H.  M.  STRINGFELLOW 


PUBLISHED    BY 

FARM    AND   RANCH    PUBLISHING   COMPANY 
DALLAS,  TEXAS 

1906 


COPYRIGHT,  1896 
By    H.  M.  STRINGFELLOW 

COPYRIGHT,  1906 
By  FARM   AND    RANCH   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 


J.  HORACE  MCFARLAND  COMPANT 
HARRISBURQ  •  PENNSYLVANIA 


DEDICATION 

WITH  feelings  of  the  deepest  appreciation  for  their  in- 
valuable services  in  behalf  of  the  New  Horticulture,  I 
now  dedicate  this  new  and  revised  edition.  First,  to 
Farm  and  Ranch,  the  only  journal  in  the  whole  country 
that  nearly  twenty  years  ago  opened  its  columns  to  what  all 
others  considered  the  visionary  "pipe  dreams"  of  a  crack- 
brained  enthusiast  and  declined  to  publish,  thereby  affording 
me  opportunity  to  present  these  great  natural  horticultural 
truths,  and  save  them  from  perishing  from  off  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

Second,  to  Thomas  L.  Brunk,  then  professor  of  horticul- 
ture at  the  Texas  Agricultural  and  Mechanical  College,  the 
very  first  man  to  whom  I  confided  them,  who  at  once  recog- 
nized their  inestimable  value,  and  the  next  year  verified  a 
part  of  them  at  the  Maryland  Experiment  Station,  to  which 
he  had  been  called,  and  from  which  he  was  discharged  for 
wasting  his  time  and  issuing  a  bulletin  on  such  wild  vagaries. 
Disgusted  at  such  blind  prejudice,  he  embarked  in  another 
line  of  business  successfully. 

Third,  to  E.  W.  Kirkpatrick,  the  nurseryman  and  public- 
spirited  citizen,  whom  all  Texans  love  to  honor,  who  was 
not  only  equally  prompt  to  see  these  great  truths  but  at  once 
put  them  into  practice,  recommending  them  also  in  his  cata- 
logue to  his  customers,  and  boldly  advocating  them  in  public. 
To  those  three,  the  fruit-growers  of  the  world  owe  a  lasting 
debt  of  gratitude  ;  but  for  them,  they  would  still  be  in  the 
bondage  of  that  trio  of  horticultural  tyrants,  the  plow,  the 
cultivator  and  the  pruning  knife,  who  with  their  prime  minis- 
ter, the  little  bacterial  devil,  "brown  rot,"  have  from  time 
out  of  mind  levied  a  tribute  upon  their  earnings  that  far  sur- 
passes in  amount  the  fortune  of  a  Rockefeller. 

H.    M.    STRINGFELLOW. 


272030 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.   The  New  Dispensation      .....  i 

II.   Old  Primitive  Orchards          ....  4 

III.    How  I  Discovered  Close  Root-pruning    .          .  9 

IV.   Close  Root-pruning 14 

V.   Right  and  Wrong  Close   Root-pruning     .          .  24 

VI.   Best  Time  and  Depth  to  Plant    ...  27 

VII.   Deep  Preparation  Wrong  .          .         .          .30 

VIII.   Cultivation 35 

IX.   Growing  Trees  from  Bearing  Ones            .         .  44 

X.   Winter  Budding    ......  49 

XI.  Grafting 52 

XII.   Why  Trees  in  Bottoms  Never  Drown           .  54 

XIII.  Grapes 58 

XIV.  The  Apple      .                   63 

XV.   The  Pear 67 

XVI.   The  Plum 70 

XVII.   The  Peach 75 

XVIII.   Apricots,  Figs,  Japan  Persimmons  and  Nuts  77 

XIX.   The  Strawberry  and  Other  Berries           .          .  80 

XX.   A  Review 87 

(vii) 


Vlll  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXI.   Effects  of  Cultivation 93 

XXII.   Blight,  and  Other  Tree  Diseases      .         .         .103 

XXIII.  Pruning,  Insects,  Fertilizing  and  Influence  of 

Scion  on  the  Stock          .         .          .          .  113 

XXIV.  Tree  Breeding  and  Origination  of  New  Fruits.  120 
XXV.   Gathering,  Marketing  and  Storing  Fruit     .  126 

XXVI.   The  Pecan 134 

XXVII.   Conclusion 141 


CHAPTER   I. 

The  New  Dispensation. 

IN  presenting  the  second  part  of  this  volume  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  fruit-growing  public,  I  do  it  with  a  feeling  of 
confidence  that  the  time  is  ripe  for  a  new  dispensation  of 
horticultural  truths,  and  while  they  may,  with  their  novelty, 
startle  from  their  sleepy  routine  many  of  the  high  priests  who 
minister  around  the  altars  throughout  the  country,  the  kindly 
reception  awarded  them  in  this  section  is  an  earnest  of  their 
general  adoption  everywhere  in  the  near  future.  The  public 
now  demand  the  best  of  fruit,  and  they  want  it  cheap.  The 
day  of  high  prices  has  probably  gone  forever,  and  it  is  a 
doubtful  question  whether  fruit-growing,  with  the  short-lived, 
unproductive,  diseased  and  insect-ridden  trees  of  to-day,  and 
their  uncertain  crops,  now  pays.  To  practice  the  most  ad- 
vanced methods  (taught  by  Mr.  J.  H.  Hale,  for  instance,  on 
peaches,  and  by  others  on  apples,  pears,  etc.)  requires  an 
expenditure  that  is  often  not  even  covered  by  the  receipts. 
The  amount  of  extra  nurturing,  coddling  and  special  petting, 
sometimes  called  "  intensive  handling,"  in  the  way  of  cultiva- 
tion, pruning,  thinning,  fertilizing  and  spraying,  to  make  pay 
an  orchard  grown  from  three-  or  four-year-old,  long,  fibrous- 
rooted  trees,  is  appalling ;  and  when  we  contrast  it  with  the  cer- 
tain, cheap  and  easy-going  style  in  which  the  twenty-year-old 
Rambo  apple  tree,  mentioned  in  the  last  chapter  of  this  vol- 
ume, brings  in  the  dollars,  we  may  well  cry,  ' 'Hasten  the  good 
time  when  all  fruits  can  be  thus  grown!"  That  is  the  mis- 
sion of  this  gospel  of  the  "New  Horticulture"  I  now  advo- 
cate, which,  though  nominally  new,  is  really  as  old  as  the 
morn  in  spring  in  the  long,  long  ago,  ages  before  Eve  plucked 
and  Adam  ate  the  apple,  when  the  warm  sunbeams  kissed  the 
dew  from  the  first  modestly  opening  fruit  blooms,  whenever 
that  was.  Its  principles,  from  which  we  have  now  wandered 

(i) 


2  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

so  far,  to  our  great  loss,  are  identical  with  those  practiced 
from  the  beginning  by  wise  Mother  Nature.  With  lavish 
hand  she  scattered  the  seed  that  fell  upon  the  solid  earth, 
and  produced  trees  after  their  kind,  from  which,  down  through 
the  puzzling  maze  of  ages  of  evolution  and  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  where  her  original  forests  stand,  she  now  presents 
to  our  admiring  gaze  majestic  evidences  of  her  skill.  To  illus- 
trate those  principles  is  the  main  object  of  this  book.  Plain 
as  they  are,  I  stumbled  over  them  for  years,  like  the  rest 
of  the  horticultural  world,  blind  to  the  patent  fact  that  in  all 
their  peculiarities  of  growth  and  treatment,  both  fruit  and 
forest  trees  are  the  same.  They  are  both  the  result  of  specific 
conditions  and  surroundings.  No  fostering  hand  of  man, 
with  friendly  cultivator,  spade  or  plow,  was  present  during 
the  millions  of  years  of  their  evolution,  to  kindly  aid  in  their 
struggles  with  climatic  adversities  the  sturdy  monarchs  of 
the  forest,  which  from  the  frigid  to  the  torrid  zone,  in  slowly 
changing  cycles  of  climate,  have  crowned  the  rocky  hills  and 
mountains  and  covered  the  broad  valleys  with  their  sheltering 
boughs.  So  they  have,  through  succeeding  generations, 
adapted  themselves  perfectly  to  their  environments  by  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  from  age  to  age  found  in  the  firm, 
unbroken  virgin  soil,  with  no  disturbance  of  their  surface 
roots,  the  conditions  best  suited  to  their  perfect  development. 
The  same  law  applies  to  fruit  trees  as  well. 

Perhaps,  if  our  horticultural  scientists  had  their  way,  and 
through  successive  generations  of  like-minded  descendants, 
could  but  grow  fruit  trees  for  a  million  or  so  years  more,  con- 
tinuously from  long-rooted  ones,  on  ground  subsoiled  and 
deeply  pulverized,  they  might  ultimately,  like  nature,  evolve 
a  race  of  trees  that  would  prefer  and  thrive  best  on  such  a 
soil,  and  fruit  perhaps  as  well  as  Mr.  Pierce's  Rambo  apple 
tree,  alluded  to  hereafter,  or  live  as  long  as  the  old  Seckel  or 
Sudduth  pear.  But  the  trees  we  now  have  to  deal  with 
retain  too  much  of  the  perversity  of  their  wild  parents  not  to 
kick  at  such  treatment.  The  experiments  recounted  later  on, 
of  Mr.  Patterson  and  trie  squirrels,  and  the  stunted  pear  trees 
in  my  Hitchcock  orchard,  on  a  muck  bed,  with  two  feet  of 


THE     NEW     DISPENSATION.  3 

rich  surface  soil  beneath  them,  prove  this  beyond  all  doubt. 
Seeing,  then,  that  they  foolishly  reject  our  efforts  in  their  be- 
half, why  not,  as  it  costs  so  much  less,  and  the  trees  produce 
so  much  more  and  finer  fruit,  indulge  them  in  their  long-time 
preferences.  However,  before  entering  my  plea  for  this 
course,  I  will  in  a  short  digression  make  some  remarks  :  ist, 
on  the  old  primitive  orchards  of  our  forefathers  ;  and,  also, 
2d,  give  a  short  account  of  how  I  happened  to  hit  upon  the 
great  fundamental  principle  of  all  entirely  succcessful  horti- 
culture, that  the  nearer  we  can  bring  a  transplanted  tree  to 
the  form  of  a  seed,  the  better  it  will  be  for  the  tree,  as  will 
be  seen  by  the  following  recent  extract  from  Farm  and  Ranch: 

While  viewing  the  path  of  the  recent  tornado  that  swept 
through  the  city  of  Sherman,  Texas,  destroying  scores  of  precious 
lives  and  happy  homes,  I  noticed  the  effect  of  the  force  on  the  trees. 
Some  trees  were  uprooted,  some  snapped  off  above  ground,  some 
stripped  of  limbs  and  bark  and  others  were  twisted  into  splinters. 
One  large  post  oak,  about  two  feet  in  diameter,  was  splintered  and 
twisted  like  a  huge  rope.  A  large  apple  orchard  was  uprooted,  and 
I  searched  in  vain  for  a  tap-root  on  any  of  those  apple  trees.  They 
had  the  appearance  of  being  planted  with  long  roots  and  tramped 
into  a  small  hole,  with  the  point  of  the  roots  near  the  surface  where 
they  remained  and  continued  to  grow.  The  soil  was  rich,  sandy  loam 
on  deep,  rich,  moist  clay.  The  forest  trees  were  large  and  strong,  and 
most  of  them  refused  to  be  uprooted  and  were  snapped  off.  Had 
these  trees  been  planted  so  as  to  induce  the  growth  of  strong  tap- 
roots, evidently  they  would  have  been  larger,  stronger,  healthier  and 
more  fruitful. — E.  W.  KIRKPATRICK. 


CHAPTER    II. 

Old  Primitive  Orchards. 

is  no  more  interesting  subject  for  investigation, 
nor  one  that  has  puzzled  observers  more  completely, 
than  why  we  are  unable  now  to  grow  as  healthy,  long- 
lived  and  productive  fruit  trees  as  our  forefathers.  Many 
and  various  have  been  the  theories  advanced,  but  the  most 
general  one  seems  to  be  that  in  the  early  settlement  of  the 
country  the  vast  forest  area  had  a  mysterious  and  potent  in- 
fluence on  climate  and  tree  diseases,  and  that  the  gradual 
clearing  of  the  land  has,  somehow  or  other,  changed  condi- 
tions so  radically  that  fruit  trees  in  general,  and  certain 
varieties  in  particular,  no  longer  succeed  as  they  formally  did. 
Where  once  in  the  eastern  states  the  apple  and  the  pear 
attained  the  giant  proportions  of  forest  trees,  now,  as  a 
rule,  they  crouch  and  cower  in  valley  and  on  hill,  their 
puny,  stunted,  blighting  offspring  a  pitiful  burlesque,  in 
many  instances,  of  their  grand  old  sires. 

I  came  across  a  statement  a  few  days  ago,  that  in  1721,  a 
small  "settlement  of  forty  families  near  Boston  made  three 
thousand  barrels  of  cider,  and  another  New  England  village 
of  two  hundred  families  made  ten  thousand  barrels."  Pre- 
sumably they  reserved  fruit  enough  for  all  domestic  uses, 
fresh  and  dried,  and  this  vast  amount  of  cider  was  simply 
from  the  surplus  fruit.  Remembering  that  those  were  days 
of  small  family  orchards,  not  of  thousands  of  acres  like  we 
now  plant,  can  we  anywhere  find  a  parallel  in  productiveness 
to-day?  The  trees  that  gave  those  enormous  yields  were 
presumably  either  seedlings,  root  grafts  or  grown  from  small 
one-year  maiden  trees,  with  few  roots  when  set,  except  the 
tap,  and  those  doubtless  cut  off  not  far  below  the  surface. 
The  nurseryman,  with  his  large,  fine,  three  and  four-year-old, 
long,  fibrous-rooted  trees,  like  those  now  sold,  had  not  yet 

(4) 


OLD     PRIMITIVE     ORCHARDS.  5 

appeared  upon  the  stage  to  captivate  those"  rustic  growers 
with  visions  of  early  fruit.  And  while  on  its  face  there  may 
seem  to  be  some  show  of  reason  in  this  theory  of  climatic 
change  as  the  cause  for  all  this  acknowledged  inferiority  and 
decay,  yet  when  examined  in  the  cold  light  of  statistical 
climatology  and  actual  experience,  it  crumbles,  a  baseless 
fabric,  to  the  ground.  The  records,  from  the  earliest  times, 
show  no  material  change  in  average  temperature  or  rainfall 
between  then  and  now,  and  we  still  have,  here  and  there,  all 
over  the  country,  strong,  vigorous  and  productive  old  seed- 
ling trees,  like  the  Sudduth  pear  in  Illinois,  and  the  Arkansas 
Mammoth  Black-Twig  apple,  which  show  beyond  all  doubt 
that  in  certain  places,  and  under  certain  conditions,  it  is  still 
possible  to  grow  apple  and  pear  trees  fit  companions  to  those 
of  long  ago,  and  which  tower  among  the  fruit  trees  of  to-day, 
like  Saul  among  his  brethren,  head  and  shoulders  above  them 
all.  These  hale  old  mementos  of  by-gone  days  are  living 
witnesses  against  the  theory  of  climatic  change,  for  C.  M. 
Stark,  of  Missouri,  in  American  Garden  of  January,  says : 
"The  original  Mammoth  Black-Twig  apple  tree  is  still  stand- 
ing near  Rhea's  Mill,  in  Washington  county,  Arkansas,  and 
bearing  fruit,  and  at  the  recent  meeting  of  the  State  Horti- 
cultural Society  of  that  state,  at  Fayettville,  there  was  an  ex- 
hibit of  apples  from  this  tree  labeled,  'M.  B.-Twig,  from  the 
original  tree,  sixty-five  years  old,  two  feet  eight  inches  in 
diameter  2*^  feet  above  the  ground."  And  yet,  just  across 
the  state  line  in  Kansas,  the  well-known  king  of  apple  grow- 
ers, Mr.  Frank  Wellhouse,  the  owner  of  1,200  acres  of  trees, 
plants  sixteen  feet  apart  in  the  rows,  because  in  twelve  or 
fifteen  years  he  finds  that  his  long-rooted,  well  sprayed  and 
cultivated  trees,  standing  on  thoroughly  prepared  ground, 
cease  to  pay. 

These  being  some  of  the  facts  in  the  case,  what  is  the  true 
answer  to  the  New  York  Legislature's  call  last  year  for  infor- 
mation as  to  the  acknowledged  decadence  of  modern  orchards, 
especially  the  apple  ?  It  will  not  do  to  talk  apologetically,  in 
explanation  of  repeated  crop  failures,  about  the  great  number 
of  fungous  enemies,  late  frosts,  dry  seasons,  chilling  winds 


6  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

and  cold,  wet  weather  at  blooming  time,  as  if  all  those  con- 
ditions did  not  prevail  in  the  "Auld  Lang  Syne"  as  well  as 
now.  Hear  what  Mr.  S.  F.  Alberger,  in  a  recent  issue  of  the 
Orange  Judd  Farmer,  has  to  say  about  the  conduct  now  of 
some  of  these  old-time  apple  trees  :  "The  apple  trees  that 
pay  best  now  in  Western  New  York  are  from  sixty  to  one 
hundred  years  old.  I  think  it  is  because  their  branches  sel- 
dom intersect,  and  their  roots  run  deep  into  the  soil,  and  dur- 
ing our  customary  dry  fall  weather,  supply  to  the  fruit  buds 
not  only  moisture,  but  the  kind  and  quality  of  food  neces- 
sary to  give  them  the  vital  power  required  to  perfect  the  fer- 
tilization of  the  flowers  and  the  setting  of  the  fruit  the  next 
spring.  I  think  the  lack  of  vital  force  in  the  buds  is  one 
great  fault  in  our  commercial  orchards  of  to-day.  In  many 
of  these  orchards,  if  the  trees  are  dug  up,  it  will  frequently 
be  found  that  they  have  no  tap-roots  at  all,  but  the  roots 
start  out  at  almost  right  angles,  and  in  some  cases  are 
found,  at  fifteen  to  twenty  feet  from  the  trees,  to  be  only  six 
inches  or  a  foot  below  the  surface.  Some  of  these  trees 
showed  decay  at  the  center  of  the  trunk  ;  in  three  cases, 
where  the  trees  had  been  grafted,  it  could  be  seen  between 
the  layers  of  yearly  growth  from  six  to  twelve  years  after 
planting,  but  the  trunks  of  a  twenty-two-year-old  seedling  and 
several  seventy-five-year-old  seedlings  that  were  limb-grafted 
do  not  indicate  any  decay.  Does  the  insertion  of  the  graft 
or  scion  into  the  crown  cause  this  delay  ?" 

Verily,- Mr.  Alberger  is  hitting  very  close  to  the  truth,  in 
his  diagnosis  of  the  commercial  orchards  of  the  present  day, 
grown  from  large,  fibrous  and  long-rooted  trees.  But  to  an- 
swer the  interrogatory  of  the  New  York  Legislature  more  fully 
as  to  this  well-known  decadence,  let  us  go  back  to  the  time, 
several  hundred  years  ago,  when  there  were  no  orchards  in 
America.  When  the  Mayflower  glided  alongside  of  Ply- 
mouth Rock,  folded  to  rest  her  white  wings,  that  for  many  a 
long,  weary  day  and  night  had  breasted  the  Atlantic's  gales, 
and  from  her  deck  the  Pilgrims  stepped  in  search  of  new 
homes,  we  know  that  they  brought  seeds,  including  fruits  of 
various  kinds,  and  when  settled,  from  time  to  time  imported 


OLD  PRIMITIVE  ORCHARDS.  7 

more.  But  for  many  years,  in  fact  generations,  compelled, 
as  they  were,  to  battle  with  the  elements  and  Indians,  and 
clear  forests,  little  attention  could  have  been  paid  to  fruit- 
growing, except  in  a  small  way  for  individual  use,  and  every 
one  doubtless  propagated  for  himself,  by  the  old  and  well- 
known  method  of  root-grafting,  or  from  seed,  where  the  trees 
were  to  stand.  It  is  a  fair  presumption,  indeed,  that  anything 
like  a  commercial  nursery  was  then  unknown,  friends  and 
neighbors  performing  such  kindly  offices  as  budding  and  graft- 
ing for  each  other  without  pay.  This  continued,  doubtless, 
for  many  generations.  In  fact,  up  to  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century  there  were  practically  no  nurseries  at  all,  and 
the  institutions  of  this  description  that  are  so  common  now 
all  over  the  country  really  date  back  scarcely  more  than  fifty 
or  seventy-five  years.  But  as  more  and  more  attention  was 
given  to  fruit  culture,  naturally  people  here  and  there  would 
grow  trees  for  sale,  and  many  seasons  would  doubtless  have 
an  over-supply.  Not  wishing  to  lose  them,  these  would  be 
transplanted  once  or  more,  to  check  growth  and  keep  them 
from  getting  too  large,  and  intending  purchasers,  seeing  such 
big,  fine  stock,  in  their  desire  and  haste  for  immediate  bear- 
ing, and  encouraged  by  the  honest  but  mistaken  nurseryman, 
would  naturally  purchase  these  large  trees,  in  preference  to 
the  small  ones ;  and,  indeed,  if  treated  right,  a  two  or  three- 
year-old  tree,  or  even  one  five  or  six  years  old  is  equally  as 
good,  and  will  fruit  sooner  than  a  younger  one.  But  the 
trouble  was,  then  as  now,  that  right  treatment  was  not  under- 
stood, and  in  order  to  preserve  a  large  part  of  the  handsome 
tops,  which  the  customers  of  course  desired,  the  nurseryman 
naturally  advised  retaining  as  much  as  possible  of  the  long 
and  fibrous  roots,  the  result  of  transplanting  once  or  more. 
And  thus  it  gradually  came  about,  that  there  grew  up  an  aris- 
tocracy of  root,  and  when  dug  and  graded  in  the  fall,  the 
value  and  price  of  the  stock  was  largely  determined,  just 
as  it  is  now,  by  the  size  and  quantity  of  the  roots.  I 
doubt,  indeed,  whether  there  is  to-day  (April  2,  1906)  a 
nurseryman  in  the  whole  country  who  has  not  numbers  of 
fine  trees  of  all  varieties  that  by  accident  have  been  dug 


8  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

with  short  roots,  for  which  he  will  cheerfully  take  half  price. 
But  to  return  to  our  immediate  forefathers  and  their  doings 
in  the  fields  of  horticulture.  Naturally,  in  very  dry  seasons 
or  in  case  of  neglected  trees,  set  with  large  tops,  the  tangled 
mass  of  feeble,  fibrous  roots  would  fail  to  take  hold  in  the 
soil,  and,  exhausted  by  evaporation  from  the  tops,  would  die. 
Then  at  once  went  up  the  cry,  "More  root  !"  Why  not? 
Taught  to  believe  that  roots  were  absolutely  necessary,  nat- 
urally the  planter  would  conclude,  the  more  the  better,  just  as 
is  taught  in  all  the  books  to-day  ;  and  indeed,  so  firmly  is  it 
fixed  in  the  minds  of  many  of  our  most  eminent  fruit  grow- 
ers that,  though  earnestly  requested  to  do  so,  they  will  not 
even  plant  a  single  close  root-pruned  tree  as  an  experiment. 
This  has  for  several  years  been  my  general  experience,  in  try- 
ing to  inaugurate  this  all-important  reform.  And  yet  it  is 
absolutely  the  foundation  of  all  permanent  success  in  the 
orchards  of  the  future.  We  have  now  got  to  a  point  where  a 
small  one-year  tree  is  considered  worthless,  and  it  is  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  sell  a  tree  that  has  not  been  transplanted 
once,  and  oftener  twice,  to  give  it  plenty  of  roots,  and  when 
such  trees  are  planted,  with  all  their  matted  fibrous  roots,  the 
doom  of  that  orchard  is  sealed,  whether  it  be  with  blight  and 
scab  in  the  pear  and  apple,  yellows  in  the  peach,  or  black- 
knot  and  root-tumor  in  the  plum  and  peach.  Such  orchards 
are  bound  to  fail  early,  become  diseased,  and  die.  And  so,  in 
tracing  the  probable  course  and  progress  of  horticulture  in 
this  country  from  the  earliest  times  down  until  now,  we  find 
that  of  necessity,  commencing  with  seedlings  and  root-grafts 
(practically  my  method),  its  whole  history  has  been  a  descent 
from  health,  longevity  and  productiveness  in  the  beginning, 
as  history  and  tradition  both  prove,  down  to  disease,  early 
decay  and  unfruitfulness  at  the  present  time,  and  in  an  exact 
and  direct  ratio  to  the  increased  quantity  of  roots  left  on, 
and  age  of  the  trees  when  set.  The  older  the  tree  and  the 
more  root,  the  worse  for  the  tree  ever  afterwards.  Just  how 
I  happened  to  discover  this  important  truth  will  be  told  in 
the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER    III. 

How  I  Discovered  Close  Root-Pruning. 

AS  this  principle  of  horticulture  is  absolutely  the  most 
important,  without  a  single  exception,  in  the  whole 
science,  and  the  foundation  of  all  permanent  success, 
it  is  most  astonishing  that  men  have  stumbled  over  it  almost 
daily  from  the  beginning,  and  never  realized  its  value.  The 
ordinary  root-graft  has  been  the  most  common  form  of  prop- 
agation for  most  fruit  trees  for  time  out  of  mind,  and  every 
nurseryman  knows  what  superior  trees  can  be  thus  grown  in 
a  single  season.  And  yet  it  has  never  occurred  to  any  one  to 
say  :  If  a  small  piece  of  root  will  make  such  a  fine  tree,  why 
will  not  the  same  principle  apply  the  second  or  any  other 
year  afterward  ?  Just  how  the  value  of  this  method  did  first 
present  itself  to  me  is  as  follows  :  Nobody  here  having  any 
faith  in  the  success  of  my  venture  of  pear  planting,  I  found 
it  impossible  at  first  to  sell  but  few  of  the  trees  I  had  grown 
from  cuttings,  but  having  hopes  that  the  astonishing  vigor 
and  thrift  of  my  orchard  would  start  a  demand,  I  dug  the 
young  trees  for  several  years,  and  transplanted  to  keep  them 
from  getting  too  large,  as  they  surely  would,  judging  from  the 
way  the  orchard  was  doing.  So  we  opened  wide  furrows  and, 
spreading  out  the  pear  tree  roots  evenly,  according  to  the 
universal  directions,  covered  them  nicely  and  firmed  the 
ground  well.  Being  an  old  market-gardener,  though  a  new 
nurseryman,  and  a  believer  in  manure,  as  already  shown,  I 
gave  the  rows  of  young  trees  a  good  dressing  of  cotton-seed 
meal,  and  with  fair  cultivation,  at  the  end  of  the  year  I  had 
no  cause  for  complaint,  as  they  all  did  well.  But  even  that 
early  I  had  caught  on  to  the  fact  that,  for  some  unexplained 
reason,  the  cuttings  planted  at  the  same  time  as  the  rooted 
trees  always  averaged  much  better.  Moreover,  another  great 
point  in  their  favor  was,  that  when  we  came  to  pack  the  few 

(9) 


IO  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

trees  1  did  sell,  being  green  at  the  business  I  found  a  world  of 
trouble  to  make  the  clumsy,  flat-rooted  ones  from  the  young 
trees  agree  with  one  another  and  lie  comfortably  in  the  same 
bundle.  Having  been  planted  with  quite  long  ones,  they  were 
entirely  lateral-rooted  when  dug.  But  the  trees  grown  from 
cuttings,  while  they  gave  us  a  world  of  trouble  to  get  out 
with  the  regulation  amount  and  length  of  root,  when  we 
came  to  pack,  were  regular  daisies — roots  all  long,  deep  and 
straight,  and  as  easy  to  pack  as  sardines  in  a  box.  The 
third  year  I  had  extraordinary  luck,  and  grew  about  seven 
thousand  trees  from  cuttings.  Having  again  sold  only  about 
two  thousand,  I  found  quite  a  job  on  my  hands  late  in  spring, 
as  we  had  waited,  hoping  some  purchaser  would  come  along. 
But  he  did  not,  so  we  had  to  tackle  the  transplanting  job 
again,  and  at  the  same  time  look  forward  to  next  year's  pack- 
ing of  those  roots,  if  sales  turned  out  good.  I  remember  well 
standing  before  the  row  where  the  trees  were  all  nicely  heeled 
in,  with  the  buds  ready  to  leaf  out,  and  my  only  help,  Frank, 
a  colored  boy,  at  my  side,  who  had  just  as  little  fancy  as  I  for 
the  job.  After  holding  a  council  of  war  for  awhile  as  to  the 
best  and  easiest  way  to  get  all  those  roots  under  ground,  and 
Frank  had  actually  gone  down  once  with  the  plow  and  was 
coming  back  on  the  furrow,  throwing  the  dirt  out,  the  idea 
occurred  all  at  once  in  the  form  of  a  self  question.  Some- 
thing seemed  to  say  :  "  If  those  trees  grew  so  well  with  no 
root  at  all,  what's  the  matter  with  cutting  them  all  off,  and 
letting  them  try  it  over  again  ?  "  No  sooner  thought  than 
settled.  Frank  was  within  fifty  feet  of  me  coming  back,  and 
when  he  got  there  I  astonished  him  by  saying:  "Now  go 
back  and  throw  the  furrow  together  again,"  and  told  him  of 
my  idea.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation  that  colored  boy, 
Frank  Bell,  caught  on  to  the  whole  thing,  saying,  "Good," 
and  started  back  on  the  row.  And  yet  I  have  been  writing 
and  urging  fruit-growers  for  the  last  eight  years  just  to 
try  the  method,  even  on  a  single  tree;  but  so  thoroughly 
had  the  long-root  idea  incorporated  itself  into  the  mental 
machinery  of  most  of  them,  that  until  the  last  year  or  twro  it 
has  been  in  vain.  I  laid  the  whole  subject  in  a  most  exhaust- 


HOW      I      DISCOVERED     CLOSK     ROOT-PRUNING. 


II 


ive  article  before  the  American  Pomological  Society  five  years 
ago,  at  Washington,  which,  if  it  was  ever  read,  certainly  pro- 
duced no  other  result  except  perhaps  to  stamp  me  as  a  wild 
and  woolly  Texas  crank! 

But  to  return  to  my  story.  We  pitched  in,  and  in  short 
order  had  the  whole 
five  thousand  trees 
reduced  back  to  cut- 
tings again,  at  least 
in  appearance,  for 
we  did  not  stop  at 
any  half-way  close- 
pruning,  like  thou- 
sands will  who  try  it 
with  fear  and  doubt. 
We  both  agreed  that 
it  was  a  plain  case 
of  no  need  for  root 
at  all,  and  off  they 
came,  as  close  to  the 
ends  as  we  could  cut 
them,  for  our  inten- 
tion was  simply  to 
stick  them  back  in 
the  rows  as  cuttings, 
after  reducing  the 
tops  to  one  foot. 
And  we  treated  the 
whole  five  thousand 
just  that  way.  If 
a  single  tree  died,  I 
never  saw  it,  and  by 
fall  those  rows  pre- 
sented a  picture  of 
vigorous  and  even 
growth,  many  trees 
being  eight  to  ten  feet  high,  like  the  tree  1  hold  in  my  hand  in 
the  illustration,  though  the  root-pruned  tree  in  the  other  hand 


TREE  IN   RIGHT   HAND  GROWN  IN  ONE  YEAR   FROM 
ONE  LIKE  THAT   IN   LEFT  HAND. 


12  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

has  twice  as  much  root  as  those  had.  But  what  shall  I  say 
of  the  great,  deep,  penetrating  roots  they  had  struck  !  The 
tree  I  hold  shows  exactly  the  character  of  their  root  system, 
though  it  has  several  large  roots  broken  off  in  digging  from 
the  hard-pan  pipe-clay  subsoil,  and  the  photograph  by  no 
means  does  justice  to  the  size  of  the  ends  of  the  roots  next 
to  the  floor,  which  were  from  the  size  of  a  knitting  needle  to 
a  wheat-straw,  showing  plainly  they  had  gone  far  deeper.  In 
fact,  I  am  confident  that  could  all  of  that  tree's  roots  have 
been  taken  up,  the  extreme  length  would  have  been  as  great 
as  the  top,  which  had  to  be  bent  and  broken  down  for  photo- 
graphing, and  measured  eleven  feet.  I  wish  particularly  to 
emphasize  the  fact  that  this  tree  was  grown  on  stiff,  black, 
waxy  soil,  broken  about  four  inches  deep,  having  a  hard-pan 
yellow  pipe-clay  subsoil,  that  positively  defies  a  spade.  And 
yet  we  find  pages  in  the  books  about  the  absolute  necessity 
for  a  deeply  plowed  and  subsoiled  bed  for  trees,  to  enable 
their  roots  to  take  hold,  forgetting  that  hard  and  soft  are 
relative  terms,  and  ground  as  hard  as  a  rock  to  us  is  as  soft 
as  butter  to  a  close  root-pruned  tree. 

But  a  little  more  about  that  lot  of  trees.  By  this  time 
people  began  to  talk  and  investigate,  and  wild  rumors  of  fab- 
ulous Le  Conte  pear  crops  and  profits  over  in  Georgia  found 
their  way  over  here.  That  fall  I  sold  nearly  every  tree  I 
had,  and,  having  found  out  this  easy  method  of  planting,  I 
hastened  to  spread  the  glad  tidings,  as  well  as  to  "  butcher" 
the  tree  roots  in  digging.  Frank  had  a  weather  eye  for  an 
easy  job,  and  when  I  said,  "Dig  with  short  roots,"  he  was 
quick  to  obey,  and  we  hustled  them  out  in  a  hurry.  But 
when  I  came  to  deliver,  I  found  that  I  had  made  a  big  mis- 
take, for  talk  as  eloquently  as  I  would  about  the  virtue  of 
short  roots,  and  with  the  trees  in  my  hands  to  demonstrate 
its  truth,  I  actually  had  several  parties  refuse  to  buy,  and  had 
to  guarantee  nearly  all  I  did  sell  to  grow.  This  wound  up 
my  efforts  as  a  close  root-pruned  tree  propagandist  for  some 
time,  and  while  knowing  they  were  worse  than  useless,  to  my 
great  disgust,  I  was  compelled  to  dig  with  all  the  roots  pos- 
sible. In  fact,  so  disheartening  were  my  efforts  for  a  number 


HOW    I    DISCOVERED    CLOSE    ROOT-PRUNING.  13 

of  years  that  if  Prof.  T.  L.  Brunk,  then  of  our  Texas  A.  and 
M.  College,  had  not,  on  a  visit  of  several  days  to  my  home, 
urged  me  so  earnestly  once  more  to  bring  the  subject  before 
the  public  in  the  Southern  Horticultural  Journal,  of  which  he 
was  the  editor,  and  also  in  Farm  and  Ranch,  it  might  have 
rested  until  now.  He  saw  the  philosophy  of  the  whole  thing 
at  a  glance  when  I  pointed  it  out,  and  showed  him  the  trees, 
and  afterwards,  when  connected  with  the  Experiment  Station 
at  Washington,  he  made  the  very  exhaustive  experiments,  an 
account  of  which  is  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  Had  not  per- 
sonal and  political  motives  succeeded  in  ousting  him  from 
Washington  shortly  afterwards,  this  most  enthusiastic  and 
progressive  master  of  horticulture  would,  I  feel  sure,  long 
ago  have  succeeded  in  demonstrating,  in  the  public  position 
he  held  near  the  capitol,  the  utility  and  vast  superiority  of 
the  close  root-pruning  over  the  long-rooted  method. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

Close  Root -Pruning. 

WITH  all  our  knowledge  and  progress  in  the  other  arts 
and  sciences,  there  is  abundant  evidence  to  prove  that 
in  the  science  and  practice  of  horticulture  we  have 
retrograded  so  far  that  only  last  year  the  legislature  of  New 
York  passed  a  bill  appropriating  funds  and  authorizing  the 
Commissioner  of  Agriculture  to  investigate  and  determine,  if 
possible,  the  causes  for  the  widespread  decadence  of  the 
orchards  in  western  New  York,  both  in  the  matter  of  the  de- 
creasing health  and  shortened  life  of  the  trees,  as  well  as  the 
inferior  quality  and  diminished  yield  of  fruit.  This  investi- 
gation is  now  in  progress,  and  is  awakening  great  interest  in 
the  east.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  all  over  the  country  the 
same  conditions  exist  that  are  complained  of  in  New  York. 
While  last  year  gave  a  phenomenal  yield  of  fruit  every- 
where, it  is  the  first  for  several  years,  and  not  likely  to  occur 
soon  again,  and  it  is  certain  that  the  sturdy  fruit  trees  which 
delighted  the  eye  with  their  grand  proportions,  and  tickled 
the  palates  of  our  forefathers  with  their  regular  and  abundant 
crops  of  fine  fruit,  are  a  thing  of  the  past.  Something  cer- 
tainly is  wrong  when  apple  trees  cease  to  be  profitable  at  fif 
teen  years  of  age,  and  peach  trees  reach  their  prime  in  five  and 
die  in  ten  or  less,  as  they  do  nearly  everywhere  in  our  culti- 
vated orchards,  and  yet  old  seedlings  in  fence  corners,  chicken 
yards,  old  fields  and  around  the  back  doors  are  standing  up 
cheerily  under  the  weight  of  twenty  or  thirty  years  ;  and  Mr. 
Hale  himself  drew  his  inspiration,  when  he  embarked  in  his 
successful  career  of  peach  growing,  from  a  sixty-year  tree 
that  stood  in  a  neglected  but  friendly  fence-row  on  his  ances- 
tral farm.  That  there  are  causes  for  all  this,  outside  of 
diminished  fertility,  want  of  care  or  fancied  change  of  climate, 
is  certain. 

(M) 


CLOSE     ROOT-PRUNING.  15 

I  will  now  enumerate  the  four  probable  causes  which,  from 
a  series  of  observations  and  experiments  for  many  years,  I  am 
sure  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  trouble,  and  in  so  doing,  will 
confine  myself  strictly  to  facts,  which  anyone  can  verify  for 
himself. 

1.  I   claim   that  the  best  form    of    tree   for    planting    is 
exactly  the  opposite  of  that  recommended  by  all  authorities 
from  time  immemorial,  inasmuch  as  the  latter  departs  far- 
thest from  nature's  method  of  seed,  which  experience  of  the 
past  proves  to  be  the  best,  and  to  which  I  claim  my  method 
is   superior.      The  close   root-pruned   tree,    as  shown   in  the 
accompanying  cut  (page  21),  struck  several  strong  penetra- 
ting tap-roots,  instead  of  one,  like  a  seedling,  and  sent  them 
much  deeper,  fully  ten  feet  in  a  single  season. 

2.  I  claim  that  deep  preparation  of  the  ground,  as  now 
recommended,    is    equally  far   from    the    truth    and  nature's 
method   of  a  firm,  unbroken  soil,  inasmuch    as  such    deeply 
pulverized   ground,  after  excessive   rains,  even  though  well 
drained,  will  for  several  days  become  a  bog,  to  drown  and 
scald  the  young  rootlets  in  summer  and  freeze  them  to  death 
in  winter  at  the  North. 

3.  That    all    cultivation    of    trees    after    several    years, 
when  the  feeding  roots  hunt  the  surface,  is  wrong  per  se,  inas- 
much as  all  trees  depend  upon  these  surface  roots  for  the 
proper  development  of  the  fruit,  both  as  to  size  and  quality, 
and  any  cultivation  must  necessarily  be  destructive  to  them. 
Of  course,  when  first  planted,  the  middles  can  be  utilized  for 
several  years  without   serious   injury,  for  growing  crops  be- 
tween if  desired  ;    but  from   the  very  start,  except  a   space 
around  each  tree  large  enough  to  prevent  damage  from  the 
mowing  blade,  frequent  and  close  mowing  through  the  grow- 
ing season,  leaving  the  clippings  on  the  ground,  is  the  best 
plan  for  all  close  root-pruned  trees,  with  annual  fertilizing  to 
perfect  the  crop.     But  please  take  notice  that  I  do  not  rec- 
ommend  this   treatment   for   poor,    handicapped,    three    and 
four-year-old,  long,  fibrous-rooted   trees,   if  planted  as  they 
come  from  the  nursery. 

4.  That  all  fall,  winter  and   spring  pruning,    until  after 


l6  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

the  trees  are  in  full  growth,  is  contrary  to  nature  and  common 
sense,  in  that  it,  as  well  as  fall,  winter  and  early  spring 
stirring  of  the  ground  tends  to  break  our  trees'  rest  and 
start  a  premature  motion  of  the  sap. 

These  four  fundamental  principles  of  successful  horticul- 
ture are  in  perfect  accordance  with  nature'  and  experience,  as 
demonstrated  by  all  forest  trees,  as  well  as  old  chance  seed- 
lings of  all. fruits  everywhere,  and  constitute  the  "New  Hor- 
ticulture" I  now  advocate.  To  these  four  points,  and  my 
internal  theory  of  all  species  of  tree  bacteria,  and  the  causes 
of  their  development  in  the  forms  of  yellows,  blight,  root- 
tumor,  scab,  black-knot,  etc.,  I  invite  the  earnest  attention  of 
fruit-growers  everywhere,  and  a  full,  exhaustive,  friendly  crit- 
icism. I  am  wedded  to  no  theory,  or  bound  by  no  prejudice, 
but  simply  follow  where  I  think  truth  points  her  finger. 

As  to  my  theory  of  inherent  bacteria,  whether  it  be  right 
or  wrong,  it  is  a  matter  of  small  moment,  provided  I  have 
shown  that  a  close  root-pruned  tree,  if  treated  rationally,  will 
never  afford  the  conditions  for  the  development  of  any  of 
those  bacterial  diseases,  and  in  this  I  think  I  have  succeeded. 
And  now  to  the  first  cause,  which  I  claim  to  be  a  radically 
wrong  form  of  tree  when  set. 

THE  REVOLUTION  IN  TREE  PLANTING. — It  is  about  eight 
years  since  I  first  announced  in  Farm  and  Ranch  that  the 
theory  and  practice  of  tree  planting,  as  handed  down  from 
time  immemorial,  was  wrong,  and  that,  instead  of  the  more 
roots  a  tree  has  when  reset  the  better,  the  very  opposite  was 
true.  I  then  gave  a  full  history  of  how  I  happened  to  hit 
upon  this  truth,  as  well  as  a  detailed  account  of  various  ex- 
periments upon  a  great  many  kinds  of  fruit  and  shade  trees, 
that  demonstrated  beyond  all  doubt  the  truth  of  my  state- 
ment. I  also  adduced  many  isolated  facts  from  the  experi- 
ence of  others  going  to  corroborate  my  own. 

So  absurd  did  the  idea  of  cutting  off  all  the  roots  of  a 
tree  seem  even  to  very  many  prominent  horticulturists,  that 
though  I  then  wrote  to  quite  a  number  all  over  the  country, 
the  invariable  answer  was  :  "  While  such  treatment  may  suc- 
ceed with  you,  it  would  be  out  of  the  question  here."  The 


CLOSE     ROOT-PRUNING.  17 

fact  is,  we  inherit  our  opinions  and  ideas  just  as  well  as  the 
peculiarities  of  our  bodies,  and  so  true  is  this  that  the  con- 
trary of  their  beliefs  is  positively  unthinkable  to  many  men. 
An  instance  of  this  came  to  me  in  a  letter  from  one  of  our 
most  progressive  Texas  nurserymen.  He  wrote:  "I  have 
been  practicing  close  root-pruning  with  perfect  success  for 
some  years,  and  yet  my  father,  who  is  seventy  years  old,  and 
sees  the  good  results  every  year,  won't  admit  them,  but  persists 
in  saying  that  'if  the  roots  were  not  necessary  they  wouldn't 
be  put  there.'  "  So  firmly,  indeed,  has  this  long-root  fallacy 
become  imbedded  in  the  human  mind  by  ages  of  practice, 
that  even  a  man  of  Chas.  Downing's  eminence  in  horticulture 
declares  in  his  great  work  that  the  "ideal  transplanting " 
would  be  to  take  up  a  tree  with  its  roots  entire.  That  this 
would  be  absolutely  the  very  worst  form,  anyone  can  easily 
demonstrate  for  himself.  Let  him  take,  for  instance,  two 
peach  or  other  tree  seeds,  and  plant  a  few  inches  apart  in, 
say  a  ten-inch  pot  of  good,  rich  soil.  At  the  end  of  next 
year,  let  him  take  them  out  and  carefully  shake  off  all  the  soil 
from  the  roots,  and  plant  side  by  side  in  the  open  ground. 
Let  him  spread  out  in  a  large  hole  all  the  roots  of  one  tree, 
according  to  the  inherited  regulation  method,  and  cut  back 
all  on  the  other  to  about  one  inch,  and  the  top  to  one  foot, 
just  enough  to  allow  of  its  being  stuck  down  about  six  inches, 
like  a  cutting.  Treat  alike,  and  in  two  years  the  root-pruned 
tree  will  be  many  times  larger  than  the  other.  And  right 
here  I  wish  to  say,  very  particularly,  that  the  great  superior- 
ity of  close  root-pruning  is  not  always  so  apparent  the  first 
year,  the  tree  giving  more  attention  to  striking  deep  roots 
than  making  top.  Even  for  several  years,  we  all  know  that 
trees  as  ordinarily  set  do  well,  but  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
a  large  amount  of  root  is  removed  even  then.  But  a  com- 
parison with  these  will  prove  that  when  the  strain  of  fruit- 
bearing  comes,  the  close-pruned  tree,  with  its  roots  deep  and 
strong,  out  of  reach  of  the  plow,  winter's  cold  and  summer's 
heat  and  drouth,  will  stand  up  for  many  years,  giving  good 
crops,  long  after  the  other,  with  its  lateral  and  surface  sys- 
tem, has  broken  down  and  died.  How  else  are  we  to 


1 8  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

account  for  the  early  decadence  of  our  latter-day  orchards  ? 
The  planter,  in  his  haste  for  fruit,  demands  big  trees,  with 
plenty  of  roots  and  top,  to  support  which,  and  to  make  them 
live,  the  nurseryman  often  transplants  several  times.  This 
gives  a  mass  of  fibrous  roots,  which  will  undoubtedly,  if  the 
season  is  good,  make  the  trees  live,  but  practically  dwarfs 
them  and  destroys  their  future  usefulness.  While  Samson 
lost  his  strength  by  cutting  off  his  hair,  a  tree  is  forever 
weakened  by  leaving  its  "hair"  roots  on  when  set,  for  it 
seems  then  compelled  to  re-establish  itself  by  emitting  new 
fibrous  roots  entirely  from  these.  This  results  in  a  perma- 
nently lateral  and  surface  system.  Sink  a  spade  around  such 
a  tree  a  year,  or  even  two,  after  planting,  and  a  slight  pull 
will  lift  it  from  the  ground,  but  a  short  root-pruned  tree  will 
resist  any  effort.  The  whole  theory  of  the  latter  method  is 
simply  copying  nature.  She  starts  her  trees  from  seed  with 
neither  tops  or  roots,  and  universal  experience  has  shown 
that  these,  and  trees  grown  from  cuttings  (which  are  prac- 
tically seed),  if  never  moved,  are  the  strongest,  healthiest, 
longest-lived  and  most  productive.  The  advantages  I  claim 
for  this  method  over  the  all-important  one  of  giving  far 
better  trees  are : 

1.  An  enormous   saving   to   the   nurseryman   in   digging 
his  stock,  which  now  must  be  taken  up  with  roots  a  foot  or 
more  long. 

2.  An    equally    great    saving    in    packing.      Instead    of 
great  bales  of  tops,  roots,  moss,  bagging  and  rope,  and  the 
labor  of  putting  up  the  same,  or  large  boxes  containing  thou- 
sands of  pounds  of  the  same  useless  dead  weight,  a  thousand 
root-  and  top-pruned  trees  could  be  packed  in  a  medium-sized 
tight  box,  with  a  layer  of  wet  moss  in  the  bottom  to  main- 
tain  a   moist   atmosphere,   and   shipped  with   perfect   safety 
around  the  world. 

3.  The   saving   to   the   buyer  will   be  even  greater.      As 
an  instance,  several  years  ago  I  ordered  five  thousand  grape 
vines  from  California,  and  wrote  specific  directions  for  root 
and  top-pruning,  as  well  as  packing,  and  offered  to  pay  for 
the  extra  pruning,  the  box  to  be  sent  by  express.      The  nur- 


CLOSE     ROOT-PRUNING.  IQ 

seryman,  setting  me  down  for  a  crank  or  fool,  packed  the 
vines,  top,  roots  and  all,  in  three  immense  bales,  weighing 
1,300  pounds,  for  which  he  got  a  special  rate,  and  yet  they 
cost  me  sixty-seven  dollars  charges.  I  pruned  and  packed 
them  in  a  single  bale  weighing  227  pounds,  shipping  them 
250  miles,  after  which  they  were  set  by  being  simply  stuck 
down  into  shallow,  pulverized  ground  and  tramped,  the  whole 
operation  taking  but  two  days.  Every  vine  grew,  and  the 
next  summer,  the  third  year,  I  expect  to  ship  grapes  by  the 
car  load.  It  would  be  hard  to  estimate  how  many  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars  are  annually  paid  by  planters  to  rail- 
roads, in  charges  on  worse  than  useless  tops,  roots  and 
packing. 

4.  Thousands    of    dollars    will    be    saved    in    the    plant- 
ing.     Instead   of    large   holes,   and   spreading   out   of    roots, 
working    in    the    soil    by   hand,    etc.,   as   now  practiced,   the 
planter  will  prepare  his  ground,  stretch  a   strong   line,  with 
tags   tied  at   the  right   intervals,  make  a  small   hole  with  a 
dibble  a  couple  of  inches  in  diameter,  stick  the  trees  down 
the  proper  distance,  and  when  a  row  is  done  turn  back  and 
tramp  thoroughly.      This  is  very  important. 

5.  Another   most   important  advantage   is,   that   by  this 
method  we  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  danger  of  spreading  all 
kinds   of  diseases   and  insect  pests,   such  as  eel-worm,   root 
tumor,    scales,   root-lice,    etc.       These  are   mostly  found    on 
the  tops  or  long  roots. 

6.  It  enables  the  planter  to  set  extra-large  trees,  which 
the   nurseryman   now  has   to   throw  away,    and    thus    obtain 
fruit  much  sooner. 

I  will  now  repeat  directions  for  root-pruning.  Hold  the 
tree  top  down,  and  cut  all  roots  back  to  about  an  inch,  slop- 
ing the  cuts  so  that  when  the  tree  is  set  the  cut  surface  is 
downwards.  Experience  has  shown  that  the  roots  are  gene- 
rally emitted  perpendicularly  to  the  plane,  or  surface  of  the 
cut.  This  final  pruning  should  be  done  shortly  before  plant- 
ing, so  as  to  present  a  fresh  surface  for  the  callus  to  form  on. 
If  trees  are  to  be  kept  some  time,  or  shipped  by  a  nursery- 
man, about  two  inches  of  root  should  be  left,  the  planter  to 


2O  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

cut  back  as  directed  when  the  tree  is  set.  About  a  foot  of 
top  should  be  left.  More  or  less  makes  no  difference.  If  the 
tree  is  well  staked,  three  feet  may  be  left  without  diminishing 
the  growth  much.  I  have  had  six-foot  trees,  well  staked,  to 
grow  finely,  but  to  avoid  staking  and  to  secure  a  new, 
straight  body,  it  is  best  to  cut  back  short.  Let  all  shoots 
grow  until  a  foot  or  so  long,  when  the  straightest  and  best 
one  should  be  left  and  all  others  rubbed  off.  I  could  give 
the  experience  and  endorsement  of  quite  a  number  of  orchard- 
ists  who  have  practiced  this  method  with  uniform  success, 
but  it  is  necessary  to  mention  only  one.  Without  waiting 
for  the  slow  demonstration  of  experience,  he  at  once  put  it  in 
practice  on  his  great  nine  hundred-acre  peach  orchard  of  one 
hundred  thousand  trees,  which  he  was  about  to  plant  in 
Georgia.  I  wrote  him  recently  as  to  how  it  turned  out. 
Here  is  the  reply  : 

Dear  Sir:  I  am  glad  to  state  that  the  close  root-pruning,  which 
was  practiced  when  planting  our  entire  orchard  of  one  hundred  thou- 
sand trees  at  Fort  Valley,  Georgia,  proved  to  be  the  most  successful 
operation  we  ever  practiced,  less  than  one-half  of  one  per  cent,  of 
the  trees  failing  to  grow,  and  all  making  the  most  vigorous  and  even 
growth  I  have  ever  seen  in  any  orchard  in  America.  The  orchard  is 
now  three  years  old,  and  gave  us  an  enormous  crop  of  fruit  this  past 
season.  I  am  thoroughly  in  favor  of  this  system  of  root-pruning. 
Yours  very  truly,  J.  H.  HALE. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  my  indi- 
vidual efforts  for  eight  years  have  amounted  to  practically 
nothing,  the  question  is,  how  to  bring  about,  in  the  general 
handling  of  trees,  this  radical  but  needed  reform.  I  see  but 
two  ways.  The  first  through  the  medium  of  the  nurseryman 
and  his  catalogue,  and  the  second  through  the  bulletins  of 
the  experiment  stations. 

Quite  a  number  of  nurserymen,  some  of  them  the  most 
extensive  in  the  Union,  have  written  me  that  they  are  now 
practicing  this  method  exclusively,  and  with  perfect  success, 
in  all  their  nursery  transplanting  operations,  but  they  dare 
not  advise  the  people  to  adopt  it,  for  fear  of  being  accused  of 
trying  to  induce  them  to  kill  their  trees,  so  as  to  sell  them 
more  next  season.  Now,  let  all  of  them  make  mention  of  the 
subject  in  their  future  catalogues.  Next,  let  the  state  experi- 


CLOSE     ROOT-PRUNING. 


21 


\ 


TREE  GROWN  FROM   A   ROOT-PRUNED 
ONE,  AT  END  OF  FIRST  YEAR. 


TREE  GROWN  FROM  A   LONG-ROOTED 
ONE,  AT  END  OF  FIRST  YEAR. 


22  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

ment  stations  make  exhaustive  trials  on  all  kinds  of  trees, 
vines  and  small  fruits,  planting  some  with  mere  stubs  of  roots, 
half  an  inch,  and  others  with  five,  ten,  fifteen  and  twenty-inch 
length,  setting  enough  of  each  to  allow  of  taking  up  some 
every  year  to  demonstrate  at  once  that  beyond  a  length  of  one 
inch,  the  quantity  and  size  of  the  new  roots  is  invariably  in 
an  inverse  ratio  to  the  amount  of  old  roots  left  on.  The 
more  and  longer  the  old,  the  more  lateral  and  weaker  the  new 
ones.  Let  them  subject  trees  of  different  ages  and  lengths  of 
tops,  up  to  four  or  five  years  or  more,  to  the  same  treatment, 
and  the  result  will  be  the  same.  The  older  close  root-pruned, 
even  with  four-foot  tops,  will,  if  staked,  quickly  re-establish 
themselves  on  strong,  deep,  new  roots  and  make  fine  trees, 
while  the  same  age  long-rooted  ones  will  become  permanently 
surface-rooted  and  dwarfed  forever.  But  it  is  much  better  to 
cut  back  the  tops  to  one  foot,  and  form  an  entirely  new  head, 
as  from  a  seed. 

In  planting  an  orchard  of  any  fruit  after  this  method,  I 
would  most  earnestly  advise,  even  on  ground  thought  to  be 
rich,  that  each  tree  be  well  top-dressed,  AFTER  BEING  SET,  with 
cotton-seed  meal,  well  rotted  barnyard  manure,  or  other  fer- 
tilizer, except  fresh  stable  manure.  But  never  put  manure  of 
any  kind,  except  plain  bone  meal,  in  the  hole  or  around  the  base  of 
a  close  root-pruned  tree,  and  see  then  that  it  is  well  mixed  with 
the  soil.  This  fertilizing  will  force  a  strong  initial  growth, 
and  thus  induce  the  trees  to  strike  many  and  deep,  perpen- 
dicular roots,  and  if  correctly  root-pruned,  as  shown  by  the 
tree  I  hold  in  my  left  hand  in  the  cut,  few  or  no  lateral  roots 
will  be  emitted  for  several  years,  the  trees  confining  their  at- 
tention entirely,  by  instinct,  to  anchoring  themselves  deep  in 
the  moist  earth,  thus  enabling  them  to  resist  any  drouth,  and 
face  unmoved  the  fiercest  storms.  No  wind  can  shake  or 
loosen  the  hold  of  a  close  root-pruned  tree,  no  matter  how 
high  the  future  head,  or  long  the  trunk.  Such  trees  will  make, 
as  they  did  for  Mr.  Hale,  a  perfectly  uniform  growth,  and  if 
propagated  from  bearing  trees,  as  all  should  be,  will  all  come 
into  bearing  at  the  same  time,  and  mature  to  full  size,  with- 
out thinning,  crops  that  would  paralyze  trees  planted  with 


CLOSE     ROOT-PRUNING.  23 

long  roots.  Of  course,  removing  some  of  the  smaller  fruit 
would  somewhat  increase  the  size  of  the  balance,  but  all  will 
be  large,  and  thinning  might  be  necessary  only  to  keep  the 
limbs  from  breaking.  Give  full  distance  between  the  rows  of 
all  close  root-pruned  fruit  trees,  and  run  them  north  and 
south,  if  practicable.  Trees  propagated  from  settled  bearing 
ones  will  fruit  full  the  third  year  for  peaches,  apricots  and 
plums,  and  the  fourth  or  fifth  year  for  pears  and  apples,  and 
it  will  be  economy  to  plant  in  the  rows  of  the  latter  fruits  an 
extra  tree  between,  to  fruit  for  five  or  ten  years,  until  those 
intended  to  make  the  permanent  orchard  require  the  space. 
Air  and  sunshine  are  necessities  for  bright,  clean,  high-col- 
ored fruit,  and  shade  breeds  fungi,  except  on  grapes,  which 
often  thrive  in  it. 

I  append  the  following  note  of  comment  on  the  above 
article  by  that  prince  of  careful,  painstaking  originators, 
whose  name  is  known  and  honored  wherever  fruit  is  grown, 
Mr.  Luther  Burbank,  to  whom  I  sent  a  copy  at  the  time. 

SANTA  ROSA,  January  8,  1896. 
H.  M.  STRINGFELLOW. 

Dear  Sir — Thanks  for  your  courtesy  in  sending  me  your  very  val- 
uable and  thought- suggesting  essay.  From  my  own  past  experience, 
I  believe  you  are  right.  I  have  used  for  years  a  one- inch  root  and 
five-inch  scion  for  root-grafting,  and,  strange  to  say,  in  an  experi- 
ment ten  years  ago  to  test  the  matter,  I  used  one-inch  roots  with 
five-inch  scions,  and  from  the  same  lot  of  roots  and  scions  some 
three-inch  roots  and  three-inch  scions.  In  the  long  rows  thus  under 
test,  I  could  see  no  difference  (apple  and  pear)  in  the  stand,  but  in 
the  case  of  the  pears,  the  shorter  roots  produced  the  largest  and  best 
trees.  Apples  were  nearly  alike.  I  usually  cut  back  very  heavily, 
but  so  far  have  not  practiced  such  heroic  treatment  as  you  suggest. 
But  as  I  said  before,  think  you  are  right,  and  shall  test  it  here.  If 
it  be  true,  what  a  grand  result  your  studies  have  led  up  to,  and  in 
any  case  can  result  only  in  good  ! 

Sincerely  yours, 

LUTHER  BURBANK. 


CHAPTER   V. 

Right  and  Wrong  Close  Root-Pruning. 

I  WISH  particularly  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
chief  object  in  close  root-pruning  is  to  concentrate  all 
the  vital  energy  of  the  newly  set  tree  on  a  limited  root- 
surface,  and  compel  it  to  strike  several  strong,  perpendicular 
tap-roots,  and  while  doing  this,  not  to  allow  its  attention  to  be 
diverted  to  forming  side  or  lateral  roots  at  the  same  time. 
By  examining  the  accompanying  illustration,  Fig.  i,  it  will  be 
seen  that  all  seedling  and  transplanted  trees  should  be  cut 
back  close  below  the  collar,  and  just  under  the  first  good  side 
roots,  and  not  leave  any  length  of  the  main  or  tap-root,  with 
side  roots  cut  back,  as  in  Fig.  2.  Such  trees  will  invariably 
at  once  strike  a  great  many  lateral  and  surface  roots  also, 
while  the  properly  root-pruned  tree  will,  the  first  season,  con- 
fine itself  almost  entirely  to  making  strong,  deep  ones,  with 
perhaps  less  top,  though  the  second  year  will  always  remedy 
that.  If  the  trees  should  be  too  large  to  root-prune  with  the 
shears  or  knife,  saw  off  the  tops  to  fifteen  or  eighteen  inches, 
lay  the  tree  on  its  side,  and  saw  off  all  the  roots  squarely  just 
below  the  crown  or  collar.  Trim  the  sawed  edges  with  a 
knife  to  make  them  callus  more  quickly.  As  stated  else- 
where, large  trees  can  be  treated  thus,  as  six-year-old  pear 
and  grape  vines  at  Hitchcock  are  now  fruiting,  that  have 
renewed  their  strength  like  young  trees,  it  being  a  general 
law  of  nature  that  once  a  tree,  especially  an  old  one,  is  taken 
from  the  ground,  the  old  roots  are  an  encumbrance,  and  its 
former  strength,  vigor  and  health  can  only  be  renewed  by 
compelling  it  to  re-establish  itself,  as  before,  on  an  entirely 
new  system. 

And  now,  in  answer  to  many  inquiries  as  to  the  size  of 
trees  which  may  be  successfully  transplanted.  If  closely 
root-pruned,  there  is  scarcely  any  limit.  While  universal 

(24) 


RIGHT     AND     WRONG     CLOSE     ROOT-PRUNING. 


experience  has  shown,  beyond  all  doubt,  that  fruit  trees  and 
grape  vines  over  three  or  four  years  of  age,  if  set  with  long 
and  fibrous  roots,  are  inferior  to  smaller  ones,  the  rule  by  no 
means  holds  good  with  close  root-pruned  trees,  for  a  very 


1-Vh.AK  UK  OLDER  ROOT-PRUNED  TREK.    JUNE-BUD  OR  SEEDLING  ROOT-PRUNED  TREE. 

valuable  and  important  point  in  close  root-pruning  is,  that  it 
can  be  utilized  to  make  living  fence  posts  for  newly  enclosed 
farms,  fields  or  orchards.  A  china,  cotton-wood,  willow, 
hackberry  or  sycamore,  and,  I  presume  other  forest  trees  of 


26  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

large  size,  even  six  inches  or  more  in  diameter,  can  be  dug, 
all  the  roots  cut  back  close  to  the  body  and  tops  to  five  or  six 
feet,  and  planted  quite  deep,  just  like  a  fence  post,  well  ram- 
med, and  wire  stretched,  and  every  one  of  the  trees  named 
will  grow  off  quickly  and  make  nice  heads  by  fall,  and  large 
trees  the  second  season.  Every  orchard  should  have  such  a 
windbreak  around  and  through  it  at  wide  intervals.  Not  an 
evergreen  one,  to  keep  off  the  cold,  but  a  deciduous  one,  to 
break  the  force  of  summer  and  fall  winds,  that  every  year 
lash  thousands  of  bushels  of  half  grown  and  also  ripe  fruit 
from  the  trees.  I  lost  in  a  single  storm,  some  years  ago,  over 
two  thousand  bushels  of  pears,  blown  down  in  an  hour  and 
buried  in  the  mud.  The  cottonwood  is  by  far  the  best  of  all 
trees  here  for  such  a  windbreak,  as  it  grows  very  tall,  and 
will  stand  any  storm,  if  grown  from  cuttings  or  root-pruned 
trees.  If  care  be  taken  to  select  cuttings  from  male  trees, 
the  nuisance  of  seed  and  cotton  will  be  avoided.  I  had  at 
Hitchcock  two  ten-acre  orchards  of  Garber  and  Le  Conte 
pears,  that  were  both  bisected  each  way  with  cottonwood 
when  the  pear  trees  were  set,  thus  cutting  each  ten-acre  lot 
into  four  blocks  of  2^  acres,  surrounded  now  on  all  sides 
with  tall  trees,  that  let  in  the  breezes  for  comfort,  but  com- 
pletely break  the  force  of  driving  summer  winds,  that  would 
blow  off  the  fruit.  In  fact,  to  plant  an  orchard  without 
proper  protection  is  pure  gambling,  as  the  Missouri  and 
Arkansas  growers  found  out  last  fall.  Car  load  after  car  load 
of  windfall  Ben  Davis  and  other  apples  were  shipped  here 
last  October,  that  had  been  whipped  off  by  a  strong  wind 
storm  that  swept  those  states.  While  the  roots  of  such  a 
windbreak  would  be  objectionable  on  vegetable  ground,  they 
do  no  harm  at  all  to  fruit  trees,  if  occasionally  fertilized,  as  is 
clearly  shown  in  my  orchards. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Best  Time  and  Depth  to  Plant. 

I  AM  afraid  that  many  persons  will  make  the  mistake  of 
planting  their  close  root-pruned  trees  too  deep  on  level 
ground,  under  the  erroneous  impression  that,  having 
so  little  root,  such  a  tree  will  find  it  difficult  to  establish 
and  sustain  itself  at  first.  If  they  will  but  reflect  that  the 
root-graft  and  the  cutting,  which  will  strike,  have  no  such 
trouble,  and  that  nature  plants  her  seeds  upon  the  bare  sur- 
face of  the  firm  ground,  and  trusts  to  the  wind,  with  leaves 
and  dust,  and  the  rain,  to  splash  a  thin  covering  around  or 
over  them,  they  must  see  that  a  strong,  close  root-pruned 
young  tree,  with  far  more  vital  energy  than  a  seed,  cannot 
fail  to  take  care  of  itself,  if  set  five  or  six  inches  deep  in  soil 
at  all  moist  and  well  firmed.  Of  course,  if  it  be  dry  that 
depth,  the  trees  must  be  watered  when  set.  But  this  applies 
to  sections  of  the  country  favored  with  a  reasonably  regular 
rainfall,  and  more  particularly  to  level  and  only  slightly  roll- 
ing ground.  On  elevated  uplands  and  hills,  the  depth  should 
be  increased  a  little,  and  all  through  the  dryer,  hilly  half  of 
our  state,  comprising  West  and  Northwest  Texas,  a  depth  of 
one  foot  would  be  none  too  much.  Of  course,  this  would 
require  a  total  length  of  eighteen  to  twenty-four  inches  of 
tree  when  set.  That  deep  planting  is  best  all  through  the 
latter  portions  of  the  state,  with  its  rocky,  limestone  subsoils, 
was  clearly  demonstrated  by  Wm.  Cook,  of  Lampasas,  one 
of  the  most  successful  and  observing  fruit-growers  I  ever  met. 
I  camped  for  a  month  near  his  orchard,  in  the  suburbs  of 
Lampasas,  fifteen  years  ago,  and  was  told  by  him  that  the 
finest,  longest-lived  and  most  productive  trees  of  all  kinds  he 
ever  grew  were  planted  two  feet  deep,  right  up  on  the  rocky 
hillside  and  top,  and  that  he  had  practically  drilled  the  holes 
out  of  the  almost  solid  limestone  soft  rock.  A  little  top  soil 

(2?) 


28  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

was  put  into  the  bottoms,  trees  were  set  two  feet  deep,  the 
holes  rilled  two-thirds  with  surface  soil,  and  a  bucket  of  water 
to  each  hole,  the  weather  having  been  dry  for  a  long  time. 
After  the  ground  had  settled,  the  holes  were  filled  level  and 
well  firmed  with  the  foot.  The  trees,  of  all  kinds,  not  only 
all  grew,  but  no  drouth  afterwards  even  seemed  to  affect 
them.  The  roots  had  necessarily  been  cut  back  quite  short, 
though  he  new  nothing  of  the  virtue  of  the  method.  Of 
course,  such  treatment  would  be  ruinous  on  level  or  moder- 
ately rolling  ground  with  a  clay  subsoil.  No  amount  of  rain 
can  ever  water-log  the  rocky,  porous  Subsoils  of  West  Texas 
hills,  and  trees  of  all  kinds  should  be  planted  at  least  twelve 
inches  deep  or  deeper,  all  through  that  section.  The  rich  val- 
leys should  be  avoided  for  fruit,  not  only  because  of  occa- 
sional excessive  rains,  that  for  a  few  days  render  them  a  bog, 
but  worse  still,  because  such  locations  are  so  subject  to  late 
spring  frosts  as  to  render  crops  too  uncertain. 

And  now,  as  to  the  best  time  for  planting  close  root- 
pruned  trees  in  the  southern  states.  If  asked  the  very  best 
month,  I  would  say  December.  The  young  trees  to  be 
moved  have  then  gone  completely  to  rest,  and  while  the 
ground  is  still  warm  enough  to  encourage  root  action,  the  air 
is  not  sufficiently  warm  to  stimulate  a  new  growth  of  leaves 
after  planting,  which  often  happens  to  trees  moved  in  Novem- 
ber, especially  if  from  a  more  northern  latitude.  Still,  Jan- 
uary is  nearly  as  good  a  month,  and  all  through  February 
and  March,  up  to  the  very  starting  of  the  leaves,  if  the  soil 
is  moist,  such  trees  may  be  planted  with  perfect  success.  But 
they  will  not  grow  off  as  rapidly,  or  make  as  great  a  total 
growth  that  season,  as  those  planted  earlier.  At  the  North 
and  in  the  Middle  States,  as  Prof.  T.  L.  Brunk  remarks  else- 
where in  his  article,  if  trees  with  so  little  root  to  hold  them 
down  are  set  in  the  fall,  especially  on  deeply  pulverized  soil 
(a  worse  than  useless  preparation),  there  might  be  danger  of 
heaving  from  the  action  of  frost.  But  that  heaving  could 
easily  be  obviated  by  banking  the  earth  up  entirely  over  the 
one-foot  tops,  thus  protecting  them  the  first  season  from  the 
cold,  and  mice  and  rabbits  as  well.  The  advent  of  hot 


BEST     TIME     AND     DEPTH     TO     PLANT.  2Q 

weather  is  so  sudden  there  that  I  would  earnestly  recommend 
the  fall  for  planting  close  root-pruned  trees  all  over  the  Mid- 
dle and  Northern  States.  By  spring  new  roots  several  inches 
long  will  have  been  struck,  and  a  much  stronger  growth 
secured  the  first  season.  As  will  be  seen  from  Prof.  Brunk's 
experiments  in  Maryland,  his  trees  were  all  planted,  both 
fruit  and  evergreen,  on  the  i6th  of  April,  1892.  That  was 
entirely  too  late  to  get  the  best  result  the  first  season.  More- 
over, something  must  have  been  wrong  with  the  trees  or  con- 
ditions, when  the  althea  failed  to  start  and  do  well,  for  it 
grows  almost  anywhere  like  a  weed,  from  a  cutting  even. 
As  to  the  Norway  spruce,  hemlock  and  Lawson  cypress, 
I  know  nothing,  having  never  seen  them.  But  I  do  know 
that  the  oranges  both  sour,  sweet  and  trifoliate,  will  all  grow 
off  with  the  greatest  vigor  from  close  top  and  root-pruned 
trees,  and  thousands  of  orange  trees  are  being  thus  treated  in 
Florida  the  present  season.  They  may  also  be  thus  planted 
all  through  June,  July  and  August  with  perfect  success,  if  an 
additional  inch  and  a  few  fibrous  roots  are  left  on.  Last 
summer  I  never  lost  a  single  one  of  fifteen  hundred  young 
trifoliata,  planted  from  seed  in  February  and  transplanted 
into  nursery  rows  in  June,  when  about  six  inches  high.  By 
fall  some  of  them  were  three  feet  high,  all  having  been  root 
and  top-pruned  when  set,  and  firmly  tramped.  However, 
with  these  and  other  evergreens  each  one  can  experiment  for 
himself,  as  soil  may  have  something  to  do  with  results. 

HAVING  now  discussed  fully  the  first  cause — viz.,  long 
roots  —of  the  general  decadence  and  unfruitfulness  of  latter- 
day  apple  and  pear  orchards,  and  given  a  summary  of  my  ex- 
perience as  to  the  best  methods  of  treating  and  planting  close 
root-pruned  trees,  I  will  in  the  next  chapter  go  on  with  the 
investigation. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

Deep  Preparation  Wrong. 

AND  now  to  the  second  cause  of  deteriorated  orchards, 
which  I  claim  to  be  the  deep  plowing  and  pulverizing 
before  planting,  either  of  the  whole  orchard  or  of  sev- 
eral feet  where  the  tree  is  to  stand,  in  the  shape  of  large 
holes.  It  is,  indeed,  true  that  such  preparation  is  necessary 
for  long,  fibrous-rooted  trees,  such  as  our  nurserymen  now 
furnish  by  once  or  twice  transplanting,  for  such  trees  invari- 
ably re-establish  themselves  on  fibrous  roots  from  the  old  ones, 
being  unable  to  penetrate  a  firm  surface  or  subsoil.  More- 
over, such  a  loose,  well  pulverized  hole,  or  entire  plant-bed, 
will  undoubtedly  enable  such  trees  to  take  hold  and  make  an 
excellent  growth,  and  bear  well  for  some  years  ;  but  such 
preparation  is  entirely  artificial,  opposed  to  nature,  and 
infallibly  lays  the  foundation  for  permature  decay  and  death. 
In  furnishing  the  trees  described  a  loose,  porous  seed-bed, 
we  induce,  in  fact  compel,  them  to  confine  themselves 
almost  entirely  to  it.  !  I  saw  a  most  remarkable  example 
of  this  several  years  ago,  near  Seguin,  in  this  state.  A  most 
painstaking  fruit-grower  had  prepared, a  peach  orchard  after 
this  fashion,  the  trees  being  trimmed  high  to  allow  of  cultiva,- 
tion,  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  year  gathered  crops  of  excellent 
fruit.  In  the  summer  of  the  sixth  a  terrible  rain  and  wind 
storm  swept  over  that  section  and  laid  every  single  one  of 
those  peach  trees  flat  on  the  ground,  with  their  roots  in  the 
air.  I  wish  every  fruit  grower  could  have  seen  this  orchard, 
with  its  surface  and  lateral  root  system  scarcely  one  foot  in 
depth,  having  had  no  hold  on  the  subsoil,  excepting  through 
its  fibrous  roots.  Doubtless  many  have  had  such  an  experi- 
ence. But  suppose  these  trees  had  not  fallen?  Is  it  not  a  fair 
presumption  that  their  roots,  standing  for  several  days  in 
almost  liquid  mud,  under  a  July  sun,  would  have  been  injured? 

(30) 


DEEP     PREPARATION     WRONG.  31 

But  suppose  such  an  excessive  rain  had  fallen  at  the  North, 
and  the  thermometer  had  dropped  below  zero,  freezing  this 
one  foot  of  slush  and  roots  as  solid  as  a  rock  ?  Is  there  any 
wonder  that  trees  exposed  to  such  conditions  for  a  few  years, 
and,  as  a  rule,  allowed  to  overbear,  should  soon  yield  inferior 
crops,  and  die  young  ?  While  the  peach  would  suffer  most, 
no  tree  can  stand  such  treatment  uninjured.  So  much  for 
reason  and  experience  against  a  deeply- stirred  surface  soil. 

Now,  let  us  turn  to  nature.  As  I  said  before,  she  plants 
her  trees  with  neither  tops  or  roots,  on  the  surface  of  the 
firm,  unbroken  soil,  and  whether  it  be  an  apple  or  an  oak,  in 
the  valleys  or  on  the  hills,  she  grows  a  tree  unequalled  by  all 
the  care  and  skill  of  man.  Who  subsoiled  and  pulverized  for 
the  giant  red-woods  of  California,  the  towering  pines  of  Ore- 
gon and  the  South,  the  monster  sycamores  and  cottonwoods 
of  the  Middle  States,  or  dug  wide  holes  and  spread  out  their 
roots,  carefully  fingering  in  the  top  soil,  for  the  grand  old 
hickories,  walnuts,  elms  and  oaks  that  once  crowned  New 
England's  rock-ribbed  hills?  True,  these  are  forest  trees; 
but  how  about  the  old  original  Seckel  pear,  the  old  apple  tree 
that  shaded  Roger  Williams'  grave,  and  hundreds  of  ancient 
seedlings,  of  both  fruits,  that  gave  bounteous  yield  to  three 
and  four  generations  of  the  Pilgrims'  sons  ?  So  much  for 
nature's  testimony  in  favor  of  a  firm,  unbroken  soil. 

But  while  all  those  trees  were  seedlings,  I  claim  that  the 
close  root-pruned  tree  is  far  better  than  a  seedling.  The  life 
force  of  a  seed,  while  capable,  ultimately,  of  the  grand  devel- 
opments I  have  named,  is  primarily  very  weak.  Who  would 
suspect  that  the  great  Charter  Oak  lay  wrapped  in  the  tiny 
acorn,  which  probably  made  scarcely  a  foot  of  growth  the 
first  year,  or  that  the  embryo  sycamores  and  cottonwoods 
that  tower  in  the  river  bottoms  of  the  Middle  States  once 
floated  down,  almost  as  light  as  the  air  itself,  and  the  first 
year  made  but  a  few  inches  of  growth?  And  yet  a  close  root- 
pruned  cottonwood  tree  or  a  cutting  will,  in  this  section,  often 
grow  ten  feet  high  the  first  year.  The  potentiality  of  life  in 
the  root-pruned  tree  is  many  times  greater  than  in  the  seed, 
and  it  has  the  additional  advantage  of  striking  several  deep 


32  THE     NEW    HORTICULTURE. 

tap-roots  instead  of  one,  at  the  same  time  sending  them 
much  deeper  than  a  seedling  will.  I  have  repeatedly  dug  Le 
Conte  pear  trees  thus  treated  in  spring,  and  by  fall  found  four 
feet  of  almost  perpendicular  roots,  and  then  left  them  still 
going  down.  (See  the  pear  tree  I  hold  in  my  right  hand,  page 
eleven.)  I  once  dug,  on  the  3rd  of  July,  a  spring-set  tree, 
and  broke  the  roots  at  three  feet  below  the  surface,  and  this 
on  unbroken  prairie  sod,  with  a  so-called  hard-pan  subsoil, 
into  which  a  post  hole  could  not  be  dug  except  with  a  ground 
auger  !  The  grass  was  killed  with  a  hoe  and  the  ground  kept 
clean  with  the  same,  and  top-dressed  well  with  cotton-seed 
meal  raked  in.  The  top  measured  four  feet  when  dug.  The 
penetrating  power  of  tree  roots  is  almost  incredible.  Nobody 
here,  on  Galveston  Island,  where  ground  cisterns  are  often 
used,  will  dare  to  plant  a  willow  or  china  tree  anywhere  near 
one.  I  saw  an  instance  where  a  willow  had  driven  its  roots 
through  a  twelve-inch  brick  and  mortar  wall  and  rilled  up  the 
interior  almost  entirely.  I  could  fill  this  entire  chapter  with 
instances  of  the  wonderful  penetrating  power  of  root-pruned 
trees,  to  which  the  firmest  soil  seems  to  oppose  not  the 
slightest  obstruction,  but  will  cite  only  one — a  Herbemont 
grape  vine  at  Hitchcock,  grown  from  a  cutting,  where  it 
stood  for  six  years,  and  of  large  size.  I  cut  the  roots  to  one- 
inch  stubs  and  top  to  twelve  inches,  after  planting  about  six 
inches  deep  the  second  time,  in  as  small  a  hole  as  I  could 
make,  in  ground  never  broken,  at  my  back  door.  It  was  top- 
dressed  with  bone  and  ashes,  after  ramming  as  tight  as  a  post. 
It  grew  two  six-feet  canes  the  first  year,  bore  full  the  sec- 
ond, covered  a  thirty-feet  trellis  the  third,  and  now  rambles 
half  over  a  large  cottonwood  tree,  and  has  borne  annually 
immense  crops  of  grapes,  with  never  a  spraying  or  a  sign  of 
disease,  while  all  the  cultivated  Herbemonts  in  the  neighbor- 
hood rot  nearly  every  year.  It  has  had  liberal  dressings  of 
bone  and  ashes  for  eight  years,  and  been  cultivated  entirely 
with  the  hoe. 

As  still  further  demonstrating  the  superiority  of  nature's 
method  of  a  firm,  unbroken  soil  for  seedling  and  close  root- 
pruned  trees,  I  will  say  that  a  part  of  my  Kieffer  orchard  at 


DEEP     PREPARATION     WRONG.  33 

Hitchcock,  embracing  about  one-quarter  of  an  acre,  was 
originally  a  pond,  which  I  had  filled  up  fully  two  feet  with 
good  surface  soil  before  the  trees  were  set.  I  expected  to 
see  an  extraordinary  growth  on  this  spot,  and  was  greatly 
surprised,  at  the  end  of  two  years,  to  find  them  steadily  fall- 
ing behind  the  balance,  that  stood  on  ground  broken  only 
four  or  five  inches.  To  remedy  this,  to  me,  then,  most  mys- 
terious condition  of  things,  I  yearly  applied  an  increased 
quantity  of  fertilizer  to  this  spot,  but  without  avail,  and  now, 
at  the  end  of  fourteen  years,  it  is  plainly  discernible  by  the 
inferior  size  of  the  trees  that  stand  upon  it. 

I  will  now  close  this  part  of  my  subject  with  a  letter 
recently  received  from  Mr.  C.  B.  Patterson,  of  Payne's 
Depot,  Scott  County,  Ky. 

MR.  H.  M.  STRINGFELLOW. 

Dear  Sir — Having  read  with  great  interest  your  article  in  Texas 
Farm  and  Ranch  on  the  subject  of  '•  A  Deep  Preparation  of  the 
Ground  for  Trees  Wrong,"  please  allow  me  to  thank  you  for  a  per- 
fectly clear  explanation  of  a  mystery  in  horticulture  that  greatly 
puzzled  my  old  father,  now  dead,  as  well  as  myself,  and  all  my 
neighbors  who  know  the  fact.  The  old  man  was  always  a  great  lover 
of  trees,  and  as  the  black  walnut  is  a  natural  growth  here,  wherever 
the  squirrels  hid  the  nuts  in  fall,  around  in  the  scattering  woods,  that 
stood  on  his  virgin  pasture  soil,  as  they  often  did,  he  would  fence  in 
the  young  groves  in  spots  where  the  trees  came  up,  to  protect  them 
from  the  stock.  In  a  few  years,  tall,  vigorous,  handsome  walnut 
groves  rewarded  his  care,  with  no  other  attention,  for  the  young  trees 
seemed  to  laugh  at  the  blue-grass  sod.  But  wishing  to  extend  these 
plantings  to  a  place  neglected  by  the  squirrels  when  they  hid  their 
winter  store,  my  father  one  day  announced  his  intention  of  beating 
them  as  a  tree  grower,  and  accordingly  fenced  off  several  acres, 
which  he  had  plowed  and  harrowed  several  times,  and  most 
thoroughly  prepared.  When  all  was  ready  the  places  were  checked 
off,  and,  like  the  squirrels,  he  planted  the  nuts.  They  came  up 
nicely,  and  had  the  best  of  attention  for  several  years,  when  he 
turned  them  over  to  the  grass  as  the  squirrels'  trees  were.  But  all 
to  no  purpose,  for  from  the  very  first,  in  spite  of  all  his  care,  he  never 
could  make  his  trees  grow  like  theirs,  and  died  in  total  ignorance  as 
to  how  or  why  they  beat  him.  This  was  twenty  years  or  more  ago, 
and  the  trees  are  still  standing  here,  to  show  for  themselves,  not 
more  than  half  as  high  or  large  as  those  planted  by  the  squirrels 
on  the  unbroken  virgin  sod.  It  affords  me  great  pleasure  to  furnish 
you  this  living  and  unanswerable  proof  of  the  correctness  of  your 
position,  that  for  tree  seed,  and,  I  presume,  your  close  root-pruned 
trees,  which  you  claim  to  be  even  superior  to  seed,  a  firm,  unbroken 


34  THE    NEW    HORTICULTURE. 

soil,  like  nature  chooses,  is  better  than  any  preparation  man  cam 
make.  I  will  further  add  that  about  ten  years  ago  I  turned  out  a 
part  of  a  cultivated  field  adjoining  that  woodland  pasture,  and  the 
squirrels  have  tried  their  hands  on  it  also,  but  with  no  better  luck 
than  my  father,  for  the  trees  are  just  as  scrubby  and  inferior  to  those 
alongside  in  the  woods,  as  were  his,  and  we  call  them  "cornfield" 
walnuts,  to  designate  their  inferiority. 

Yours  very  truly, 

C.   B.    PATTERSON. 

A  few  days  after  receiving  this  letter,  I  came  across  the 
following,  in  the  New  York  Sun,  which  was  so  strongly  cor- 
roborative that  I  cut  it  out  : 

The  finest  shipment  of  walnut  for  1895  came  from  Texas,  but  as 
a  rule  Indiana  walnut  is  the  best.  Kentucky  has  more  than  any 
other  state,  but  it  does  not  average  as  high  as  in  Indiana.  The 
largest  walnut  mill  in  the  world  is  in  Chicago,  and  it  uses  about  three 
thousand  car  loads  a  year.  Fifty  dollars  per  thousand  is  about  the 
average  price  for  the  best  grade  of  walnut,  and  this  is  all  natural 
forest  growth,  what  is  known  as  "cornfield"  walnut  being  hard,  irregu- 
lar, and  has  more  or  less  windshakes.  Figured  walnut  is  very 
costly,  and  is  used  for  veneering.  One  man  in  West  Virginia  owns  a 
figured  tree  which  cost  him  one  thousand  dollars,  for  which  he  has 
refused  three  thousand,  and  asks  four  thousand,  there  being  over  six 
thousand  feet  of  lumber  in  it. 

With  all  this  indisputable  evidence  of  the  vast  superiority 
of  the  firm,  solid  seed-bed,  on  which  nature  plants  her  trees, 
is  it  possible  to  resist  the  conclusion  that,  while  poor,  long, 
fibrous-rooted  trees  need  soft  ground  and  to  be  "fed  with  a 
spoon,"  the  sturdy  seedling  and  close  root-pruned  tree  de- 
light to  overcome  the  resistance  of  unbroken  ground  ? 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

Cultivation. 

THE  following  remarks  are  intended  to  be  of  general 
application  all  over  the  country,  but  in  regard  to  the 
peach,  I  would  especially  commend  them  to  our  coast 
country  fruit-growers.  If  asked  the  very  best  location  and 
treatment  for  a  peach  orchard  here,  I  would  answer  most  em- 
phatically, one  broken  just  as  shallow  as  possible,  and  with 
root-pruned  trees,  planted  in  as  small  holes  as  possible,  and 
rammed  tight.  Or,  better  still,  the  unbroken  prairie  sod,  the 
grass  being  killed  for  a  foot  or  so  where  the  trees  are  to  stand, 
and  the  whole  ground  "cultivated  "  with  a  mowing  machine 
often  enough  to  keep  the  grass  down  to  within  four  or  five 
inches  at  the  outside,  and  better  less.  Root-pruned  trees  on 
fairly  well  drained  ground,  thus  treated  and  fertilized  moder- 
ately, will  live  for  many  years  and  bear  fine  crops  of  large 
fruit,  while  those  on  deeply  stirred  soil  and  annually  plowed 
will  invariably  die  inside  of  six  years  ;  at  least  those  set  with 
long  roots  will,  and  very  likely  the  root-pruned  also,  for  the 
peach  cannot  stand  a  loose  surfaced,  saturated  soil  in  this 
level  country. 

Having  shown,  first,  that  a  long  and  fibrous-rooted  is  a 
radically  wrong  form  of  tree  for  planting  ;  and  secondly,  that 
large  holes  and  a  deeply  pulverized  soil,  in  which  such  trees 
are  ordinarily  set,  and  which  they  fill  in  a  few  years  with  the 
bulk  of  their  roots,  are  receptacles  for  holding  the  semi-stag- 
nant water,  often  for  days,  even  on  well-drained  ground,  dur- 
ing and  after  continued  heavy  rains,  followed  by  scalding  sun- 
shine in  summer  and  also  intense  cold  in  winter  at  the  North, 
I  will  now  take  up  the  third  probable  cause  of  the  early  de- 
cline and  death  of  many  latter-day  orchards,  especially  the 
peach,  and  that  is,  the  annual  more  or  less  deep  plowing  to 
which  nearly  all  are  subjected,  all  over  the  country. 

(35) 


36  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

The  almost  universal  practice  is  to  plow  at  least  once  a 
year,  and  then  cultivate  more  or  less  deeply  until  midsummer. 
While  the  trees  are  young  and  vigorous,  and  for  the  first  few 
years  of  bearing,  all  such  orchards  give  their  best  results;  but 
when  once  in  full  bearing,  no  surface-rooted  trees,  especially 
the  peach,  such  as  I  am  now  describing,  can  stand  the  drain 
of  a  continual  cutting  of  their  roots  and  live  long,  or  give 
fruit  of  marketable  size  unless  heavily  fertilized  every  year, 
and  at  least  four-fifths  of  the  crop  removed  by  hand,  early  in 
the  season.  This  is  the  system  hitherto  adopted  by  the  suc- 
cessful peach  grower,  Mr.  Hale,  with  his  orchards  grown  from 
long-rooted  trees,  and  by  which  method  he  manages  to  make 
them  profitable  for  ten  or  twelve  years.  Having  never  tested 
it  myself  on  close  root-pruned  trees,  I  am  very  curious  to  see 
how  it  is  going  to  work  on  that  immense  orchard  in  Georgia, 
planted  after  my  method  and  on  ground  hitherto  skimmed 
over  a  few  inches  deep  for  corn  and  cotton,  according  to  the 
usual  southern  style.  For  the  benefit  of  those  who  never 
read  of  it,  I  will  say  that  Mr.  Hale,  when  the  cotton  was  off, 
without  any  hole  digging  or  additional  plowing,  simply  in- 
serted a  spade  about  six  inches  deep  where  the  trees  were  to 
stand,  and,  pushing  the  handle  back  just  far  enough  to  allow 
of  the  little  one-inch  rooted  trees  being  stuck  down  behind  it, 
withdrew  the  spade  and  pressed  the  soil  back  firmly  with  the 
foot.  Of  course,  the  short  roots  must  have  rested  flat  on  the 
so-called  hard-pan  or  subsoil,  that  from  creation's  dawn  was 
never  broken.  From  what  I  have  read,  he  is  now  subsoiling 
the  middles,  intends  to  plow  every  winter,  and  cultivate  clean 
until  midsummer,  apply  free  dressings  of  bone  and  potash 
annually,  and  thin  out  the  fruit  severely  by  hand.  I  will 
watch  the  results  with  a  great  deal  of  interest.  Ground  be- 
comes boggy,  after  excessive  rains,  only  just  so  deep  as  it  has 
been  stirred,  and  it  will  become  so  after  such  rains  for  many 
years,  thus  greatly  increasing  the  danger  of  injury  to  the 
roots  as  the  trees  on  subsoiled  ground  get  older,  as  well  as 
rendering  it  almost  impossible  to  drive  wagons  over  it,  if  a 
prolonged  wet  spell  should  occur  when  the  fruit  is  ripe. 

But  to  proceed   with  the   surface  roots  of  fruit  trees,  the 


CULTIVATION.  37 

intimate  relation  between  which  and  the  fruit  itself  has  been 
greatly  overlooked.  Every  careful  observer  must  have  noticed 
that  in  orchards,  even  from  long-rooted  trees,  while  young 
and  growing,  the  fine,  delicate  little  feeding  roots  do  not  hunt 
the  immediate  surface  like  they  do  when  the  trees  begin  to 
bear.  While  the  trees  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  grow,  these 
roots  seem  content  to  forage  around  six  inches  or  more  under 
the  surface,  and  for  this  reason,  plowing  and  deep  cultivation 
during  that  period  seems  to  do  no  harm,  though  cultivation 
deeper  than  necessary  for  killing  grass  and  weeds  is  of  no 
actual  benefit  to  the  root-pruned  trees,  nor  in  fact  to  any 
other,  and  may,  on  ground  not  perfectly  drained,  as  noted 
above,  do  harm,  after  excessive  rains.  I  have  often  wondered 
just  what  the  relation  was  between  each  leaf  and  fruit  and  the 
root,  and  whether  the  former  were  not  dependent  to  a  certain 
extent  on  the  good  offices  of  certain  individual  roots  on  the 
surface.  That  in  a  general  way  the  perfect  development  of 
the  fruit  does  depend  largely  on  these  surface  roots  can  easily 
be  shown,  by  selecting  a  row  of  trees,  for  instance,  in  an 
apple  orchard  that  has  stood  several  years  in  sod.  Plow  one 
row  five  or  six  inches  deep  in  spring, and  cultivate  and  mow 
the  others,  never  letting  the  grass  get  over  four  inches  high. 
Fertilize  neither,  and  unless  apple  trees  act  differently  from 
peach  and  pear  trees  here,  the  fruit  on  the  mowed  land  will 
be  much  the  finest.  As  a  further  test,  apply  equal  quantities 
of  a  good  fertilizer  to  certain  trees  on  the  sod  and  cultivated 
ground,  and  the  difference  in  favor  of  the  sod  will  be  surpris- 
ing. But,  returning  to  the  exact  relation  between  the  leaves 
and  roots,  the  diagram  on  page  38  clearly  shows  that  to  a 
certain  extent  and  in  a  general  way  there  is  such  a  correspond- 
ing relation.  The  diagram  represents  a  bed  or  section  in  the 
Galveston  City  Park,  through  which  I  pass  every  day  on  my 
way  down  town.  Having  no  particular  use  for  the  scrapings 
from  the  paved  streets,  the  superintendent  concluded  to  fertil- 
ize as  well  as  raise  the  grade  of  the  whole  park  about  one 
foot.  This  bed  was  selected  as  the  starting  point,  and  load 
after  load,  largely  composed  of  pulverized  horse  manure,  was 
dumped  and  evenly  spread  about  one  foot  deep  and  nicely 


38  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

raked  off.  A  start  was  then  made  on  the  section  adjoining  on 
the  left,  but  before  it  was  completed  a  very  heavy  rain  fell, 
thoroughly  saturating  the  mass  and  wetting  the  sod  ground 
below.  In  forty-eight  hours,  and  before  work  was  begun 
again,  every  leaf  on  the  liveoak  trees  in  the  center  began  to 
turn  brown,  and  in  a  week  were  as  dry  and  dead  as  if  they 
had  been  parched.  Two  cedar  trees  that  stood  about  four 
feet  from  the  edge  were  affected  similarly,  one  losing  all  the 
foliage  and  the  other  about  half.  But  the  point  to  be  noticed 
is  that  the  two  large  liveoaks  standing  at  the  immediate  angle 
of  the  two  manured  plots  lost  their  leaves  in  a  triangular 


This  diagram  represents  a  section  of  the  Galveston  City  Park.  The  squares  represent 
trees— i,  i,  the  large  liveoaks  ;  2,  2,  liveoaks  ;  3,  3,  the  cedars  mentioned  in  the  text— the 
shaded  portions  representing  living  foliage,  aud  the  unshaded  dead. 

shape,  just  above  and  corresponding  to  the  shape  of  the  ma- 
nured ground  below,  while  all  the  balance  of  the  foliage  on 
both  trees  over  the  unmanured  ground  is  still  fresh  and  green, 
though  two  months  have  gone  by.  An  examination  of  the 
ground  will  be  made  next  spring  to  see  the  effect  on  the  roots, 
but  so  far  the  young  twigs  seem  to  be  unhurt.  A  fair  pre- 
sumption is  that  only  the  fine  hair  roots  were  hurt  or  killed  by 
the  ammonia,  but  the  question  is,  if  those  had  been  fruit  trees 
about  to  bloom  in  spring,  would  not  the  destruction  of  five  or 
six  inches  of  the  surface  feeding-roots  by  the  plow  instead  of 
by  the  manure,  have  so  weakened  their  vitality  as  to  cause  a 


CULTIVATION.  39 

failure  of  the  fruit  to  set,  or  a  subsequent  shedding  if  the  sea- 
son was  bad  ?  Furthermore,  suppose  a  severe  drouth  fol- 
lowed, as  often  does,  would  not  the  loss  of  those  roots  not 
only  interfere  greatly  with  the  development  of  the  crop  that 
remained,  but  seriously  impair  the  vitality  of  the  trees  them- 
selves ?  In  thousands  of  orchards  over  the  country  this  pro- 
cess is  kept  up  for  years,  tearing  up  the  roots  from  spring  till 
summer,  then  leaving  the  trees  the  balance  of  the  season  for 
replacing  them,  only  to  repeat  the  operation  of  destruction 
the  next  spring. 

After  adopting  a  form  of  tree  that  induces  or  compels  it 
to  root  shallow,  allowing  it  to  bear  all  it  will,  and  furnishing 
it  no  extra  supply  of  food,  is  there  any  wonder,  after  all  this, 
supplemented  by  an  annual  ripping  up  of  the  roots  them- 
selves, that  orchards  grow  prematurely  old  ?  Of  course,  I 
am  now  writing  of  the  general  run  of  orchards,  to  which 
there  are  thousands  of  honorable  exceptions  all  over  the 
country,  both  cultivated  and  in  grass,  where  careful  pruning 
and  thinning  of  fruit,  as  well  as  a  free  use  of  manure  and 
shallow  cultivation,  have  attained  the  best  results  for  a  time; 
but  the  fact  still  stands  that  the  profitable  bearing  period  of 
all  fruit  trees  has  been  steadily  shortening  of  late  years,  and 
I  feel  confident  that  this  is  largely  due  to  the  three  causes 
now  given,  aggravated  by  two  others  yet  to  be  treated. 

I  will  now  briefly  allude  to  a  few  other  benefits  from  plant- 
ing close  root-pruned  trees  of  all  kinds  on  ground  plowed  as 
shallow  as  possible,  or  better,  in  virgin  sod,  if  practicable, 
and  mowing  or  cultivating  shallow  immediately  around  the 
trees  from  the  day  they  are  set,  and  a  few  years  later  putting 
the  whole  ground  down  to  some  kind  of  grass,  whatever  may 
be  best  for  different  sections,  mowing  close,  at  least  until  the 
fruit  is  gone,  and-top  dressing  annually  with  some  form  of 
potash  and  phosphoric  acid.  Here  Bermuda  grass  would 
head  the  list.  I  know  of  peach  trees  standing  where  they 
came  up  in  this  city,  in  a  compact  Bermuda  sod,  that  has 
been  closely  cut  with  a  lawn-mower  for  twelve  years,  that  are 
to-day  pictures  of  health  and  vigor.  They  have  been  moder- 
ately pruned,  have  never  failed  of  a  heavy  crop,  have  never 


4°  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

been  thinned,  and  yet  fruit  is  always  large  and  fine.  From 
time  to  time  the  lawn  has  been  manured.  Trees  of  this  age 
that  were  set  with  long  roots  and  plowed  regularly  afterward 
can  nowhere  be  shown  in  this  whole  section.  In  fact,  six 
years  is  the  utmost  limit,  in  this  level  country,  of  the  latter 
treatment,  and  the  fruit  is  far  inferior. 

One  great  advantage  of  the  above  general  system  for  all 
fruit  trees  is  that  no  tree  trunk  will  ever  sun-scald.  This 
comes  entirely  from  the  inability  of  a  tree  grown  from  long 
roots  and  annually  plowed,  to  supply  a  free  enough  flow  of 
sap,  during  hot  and  very  dry  weather,  to  prevent  stagnation 
and  scald  on  the  side  exposed  to  the  afternoon  sun.  A  close- 
pruned  tree,  with  its  deeply  penetrating  roots,  will  never  fail 
to  do  this. 

A  second  advantage  is  that  fruit  grown  on  trees  standing 
in  firm  soil,  undisturbed,  will  in  rainy  seasons  be  of  far  better 
eating  and  shipping  qualities  than  that  from  trees  whose  roots 
are  gorged  with  water,  in  a  deep,  loose  soil,  no  matter  though 
well  drained.  This  I  know  to  be  a  fact. 

A  third  advantage  will  be  a  great  increase  in  the  hardiness 
of  all  fruit  trees  in  northern  latitudes.  I  am  confident  all 
varieties,  especially  the  peach,  can  be  grown  with  perfect 
success  where  now  they  winter-kill  every  year. 

A  fourth  advantage  is  a  firm  roadway  for  hauling  out  the 
fruit  in  wet  weather. 

A  fifth  and  final  advantage  is  economy.  Far  superior  fruit, 
and  at  a  cost  of  twenty-five  cents  on  the  dollar,  as  compared 
with  old  methods  and  long-rooted  trees. 

As  going  to  show  that  these  principles  are  true,  and  that 
there  is  an  increasing  feeling  of  doubt  and  dissatisfaction 
with  present  methods  and  their  results  as  exemplified  in  the 
orchards  of  to-day,  grown,  as  all  of  them  are,  from  long-rooted 
trees,  several  years  old  when  set,  I  will  close  this  part  of  my 
subject  with  a  quotation  from  the  April  issue  of  Green's 
Fruit  Grower,  published  at  Rochester,  in  the  center  of  the 
great  fruit-growing  district  of  Western  New  York.  Mr.  P. 
C.  Reynolds,  a  regular  contributor,  and  evidently  a  horticul- 


CULTIVATION.  4! 

turist  of  long  and  wide  experience,  writing  of  their  present 
unproductive  apple  orchards,  says  : 

"  In  my  earliest  recollection,  little  thought  was  given  to  the  cul- 
ture of  the  orchard  for  the  orchard's  sake.  So  long  as  profitable 
crops  could  be  grown  among  the  trees,  the  orchard  was  cultivated. 
When  cropping  ceased  to  be  profitable,  cultivation  ceased,  or  if  any 
was  done,  it  was  done  by  the  snouts  of  swine.  And  yet  I  can  hardly 
recall  a  season,  during  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  my  life,  that 
apples  were  not  abundant.  Some  seasons,  certain  favorite  varieties, 
like  Early  Harvest,  Sweet  Bough,  Fall  Pippin,  etc.,  bore  heavier 
crops  than  in  others,  but  they  were  rarely  entirely  barren. 

"The  older  members  of  the  Western  New  York  Horticultural 
Society  will  remember  how  often  this  subject  came  up  before  the 
society  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  years  ago.  Patrick  Barry,  John 
J.  Thomas,  Elisha  Moody,  J.  S.  Woodward,  S.  D.  Willard,  and  many 
other  gentlemen,  eminently  successful  fruit-growers,  urged  the  im- 
portance of  thorough  cultivation  and,  after  the  trees  should  become 
so  large  as  to  require  all  the  ground,  making  the  growing  of  annual 
crops  unprofitable  and  inconvenient,  they  would  continue  culture  for 
the  benefit  of  trees  and  fruit.  On  the  other  hand,  Dr.  E.  Ware 
Sylvester,  Henry  E.  Hooker,  Godfrey  Zimmerman,  James  A.  Root, 
and  a  few  others,  insisted  that  after  apple  trees  have  reached  bear- 
ing age,  as  much,  or  more,  fruit  could  be  produced  by  seeding  down 
to  grass  as  by  cultivation,  provided  no  grass  was  removed  from  the 
orchard,  but  was  mowed  and  left  upon  the  ground  as  mulch,  or  pas- 
tured by  hogs  or  sheep.  The  mooted  question  was  never  definitely 
settled  by  the  society,  but  comes  up  frequently  of  late  years.  Both 
parties  have  been  able  to  instance  many  proofs  of  their  side  of  the 
controversy.  From  many  years  of  observation  among  orchardists, 
and  from  my  own  experience,  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
fruitfulness  depends  more  upon  several  other  conditions  than  upon 
cultivation,  after  the  trees  have  arrived  at  bearing  age. 

"Now,  I  would  lend  all  possible  encouragement  for  the  feeding- 
roots  of  apple  trees  to  ramify  and  forage  freely  in  this  surface  soil, 
near  enough  the  surface  to  be  benefited  by  the  heat  of  the  sun  and 
the  vivifying  effects  of  the  atmosphere  and  its  fructifying  gases.  I 
would  be  very  careful  not  to  drive  those  roots  to  the  cold,  inert, 
sterile  subsoil,  beyond  the  reach  of  the  benign  influences  of  that 
atmosphere  of  heat  and  gases  that  permeates  the  surface  soil,  where 
myriads  of  living  organisms,  in  the  humus,  carry  on  the  work  of 
nitrification.  Subsequent  cultivation  would  be  carried  on  with  the 
purpose  of  avoiding  the  disturbance  of  the  roots  in  their  best  feeding 
ground,  and  keeping  the  soil  pulverized  and  mellow  beyond  the  roots, 
for  their  future  occupancy.  I  would  leave,  every  year, a  considerable 
space  around  every  tree  beyond  that  covered  by  the  branches,  to  be 
filled  by  the  season's  growth  of  the  roots,  upon  which  I  would  plant 
nothing,  for  it  is  very  poor  policy  to  place  the  roots  of  annuals  in 
competition  with  the  roots  of  the  trees  for  the  plant-food  and  moist- 
ure of  the  soil.  Hence,  every  year,  the  space  around  the  trees, 
upon  which  no  annual  would  be  planted,  would  broaden  until  but 


42  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

narrow  stripes  between  the  rows  of  trees  would  be  deeply  plowed. 
Probably  the  soil  above  the  roots  could  then  be  most  economically 
kept  mellow  by  means  of  a  cultivator,  or  of  some  of  the  most  effec- 
tive of  modern  harrows.  When  the  time  arrives  that  the  roots  of 
the  trees  nearly  fill  the  soil,  and  the  laud  should  be  entirely  devoted 
to  the  trees  and  fruit,  and  the  growing  of  temporary  crops  ceases,  the 
question  presents  itself  :  'Should  the  surface  be  still,  cultivated,  or 
should  it  be  seeded  down  ?  '  If  seeded  to  grass,  I  am  quite  positive 
that  no  grass,  in  any  form,  should  be  removed  from  the  orchard  ;  it 
should  be  mowed  frequently,  and  left  as  a  mulch  upon  the  ground,  or 
it  should  be  pastured  closely  with  sheep  or  swine.  Which  of  these 
species  of  animals  it  would  be  advisable  to  keep  upon  the  orchard 
would  depend  largely  upon  the  fruit-grower's  ability  to  handle  the 
animals  with  most  profit.  Most  men  would  probably  do  better  with 
swine  than  sheep.  There  has  been  less  decline  in  the  price  of  pork, 
for  several  years,  than  in  the  price  of  wool.  If  sheep  were  kept, 
mutton  sheep  are  preferable.  Mr.  Woodward  and  many  others  claim 
that  sheep  are  better  gleaners  of  fallen  apples  and  the  insects  they 
contain  than  swine. 

"Another  question  of  momentous  importance  in  connection  with 
this  subject  is  :  '  Which  would  best  conserve  the  moisture  in  the  soil, 
a  mellow  surface  or  a  surface  covered  with  grass  ? '  Experience 
would  unhesitatingly  say,  a  mellow  surface.  Yet,  if  the  grass  were 
mowed  before  it  blossomed,  and  left  spread  upon  the  ground,  as  a 
mowing-machine  leaves  it,  before  the  advent  of  the  dry  season,  the 
mulch  would  afford  nearly  as  much  protection  to  the  roots,  perhaps 
quite  as  much,  as  a  mulch  of  mellow  soil.  I  really  question  whether 
it  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference  in  the  productiveness  of  orchards, 
after  they  have  come  into  bearing,  and  their  roots  pretty  much  fill 
the  soil,  whether  the  surface  is  kept  mellow  by  frequent  cultivation, 
or  is  seeded  to  grass  and  kept  mulched,  or  pastured  with  sheep  or 
swine,  provided  the  trees  are  liberally  supplied  with  plant  food.  Ac- 
cording to  my  observation  for  several  years,  since  attention  was 
called  to  this  question,  the  most  productive  old  orchards  have  been 
in  sod.  Whether  the  sod  was  an  efficient  cause  of  that  productive- 
ness, or  some  other  causes  were  dominant,  I  am  unable  to  say." 

H.  B.  Hillyer,  of  Belton,  Texas,  closes  a  letter  on  the 
subject  of  "  Cultivation  of  Orchards"  as  follows  : 

"But  is  cultivation  of  a  bearing  orchard  necessary?  May  not 
Mr.  Stringfellow  be  right?  I  am  leaning  to  that  opinion.  I  have  a 
beautiful  orchard,  thirty  varieties  of  peaches,  twenty  of  plums,  twenty 
of  grapes,  twelve  of  pears,  four  of  apples,  five  of  figs,  five  of  apricots, 
two  of  nectarines,  two  of  blackberries.  My  orchard  is  cultivated 
nicely.  I  have  some  twelve  or  fourteen  peach  trees  in  my  yard  and 
chicken  run.  These  have  never  been  cultivated,  but  have  been  sur- 
face manured.  Last  year,  on  account  of  severe  cold,  fruit  in  all  of 
this  section  was  almost  a  failure,  was  an  entire  failure  in  my  culti- 
vated orchard,  while  the  trees  in  my  yard  and  chicken  run  made  good 
crops,  some  of  them  as  much  as  four  or  five  bushels.  This  season 


CULTIVATION.  43 

we  had  two  white  frosts,  most  of  the  Japan  plums  were  killed,  all  the 
apricots  are  killed,  and  at  least  three-fourths  of  the  fruit  in  the  culti- 
vated orchard  is  killed  and  some  trees  have  no  fruit  at  all,  and  some 
hardy  varieties  have  a  fair  crop,  while  all  the  peach  trees  in  my  uncul- 
tivated yards  are  full  as  they  can  bear  of  fruit.  This  experience  of 
two  years  has  at  least  convinced  me  never  again  to  plow  an  orchard 
until  all  danger  of  frost  is  over. 

1 '  My  garden  is  very  rich ;  is  spaded  every  year  with  a  prong 
spade.  Dirt  is  not  turned  over,  to  avoid  injury  to  the  roots  as  much 
as  possible.  These  trees  have  been  carefully  pruned ;  have  been  shy 
bearers  of  fine  fruit ;  are  five  years  old  and  are  badly  sun  scalded — 
will  barely  live  another  year. 

"A  negro  man  near  me  had  an  orchard  a  few  years  ago  that  he 
annually  planted  in  corn  or  cotton ;  the  trees  are  all  dead,  but  along 
his  fence  he  put  out  some  trees  twenty-five  years  ago.  They  have 
grown  in  weeds  that  never  have  been  plowed  or  hoed  or  mown  down. 
These  trees  are  still  free  from  sun  scald  and  bearing  good  crops  of 
fine  fruit. 

1 '  What  does  all  this  mean  ?  " 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Growing  Trees  from  Bearing  Ones. 

WHILE  here  and  there  over  the  country  a  few  nursery- 
men recognize  the  advantage  of  propagating  their 
stock  from  bearing  trees,  and  advertise  the  fact  in 
their  catalogues,  the  great  majority  of  propagators  and  buyers 
pay  no  attention  at  all  to  this  important  subject.  There  is 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  a  tree  grown  either  from  a  cut- 
ting, as  the  Le  Conte  and  Kieffer  are  here,  taken  from  a  bear- 
ing tree,  or  one  propagated  by  budding  or  grafting  from  such 
bearing  tree,  will  fruit  three  or  four  years,  often  six  or  seven, 
before  one  grown  from  a  young  tree  that  has  for  a  number  of 
generations  been  grown  from  young  ones  that  have  never 
fruited.  I  drew  attention  to  this  important  point  five  years 
ago  in  our  local  papers,  and  proved  it  beyond  all  doubt,  by 
my  own  experience  and  that  of  quite  a  number  of  growers 
elsewhere.  Since  then  I  have  been  watching  and  experiment- 
ing in  this  line,  and  find  that  the  fruit-bearing  principle  is 
carried  just  as  fully  by  the  bud  as  by  the  graft  and  cutting. 
Four  years  ago  I  gave  a  friend  a  seedling  from  a  Kieffer  pear 
tree,  which  bloomed  the  third  year  and  bore  the  fourth.  The 
second  year  of  that  seedling's  life  I  took  some  buds  from  it 
and  top-budded  a  young  Garber  pear  tree  in  an  orchard  of 
three  hundred  of  that  variety  and,  just  like  the  parent  tree, 
the  growth  from  those  buds  bloomed  the  third  year,  and  bore 
fruit  the  fourth,  though  not  a  single  Garber  out  of  the  whole 
lot  showed  even  a  blossom.  Here  is  absolute  demonstra- 
tion of  the  fact  that  even  the  bud  from  a  bearing  tree  will 
carry  the  early-fruiting  capacity  in  it.  Again,  in  1896  in  the 
spring,  I  took  buds  from  an  old,  bearing  orange  tree,  and  put 
them  into  nine  Trifoliata  orange  trees  only  two  years  old, 
here  in  Galveston,  and  now,  March  6th,  eight  out  of  the  nine, 
having  made  a  good  growth  last  season,  are  coming  into  full 

(44) 


GROWING     TREES     FROM     BEARING     ONES.  45 

bloom,  though  I  do  not  expect  them  to  set  the  fruit.  Ordi- 
narily an  orange  from  seed  or  from  a  young  non-bearing  tree 
takes  eight  or  nine  years  to  bear.  Still  another  instance 
stands  near  my  home  in  Galveston.  J.  C.  Trube  has  two 
vigorous  young  Le  Conte  pear  trees,  now  four  years  old. 
They  bore  quite  a  number  of  pears  the  second  and  third 
years,  were  full  the  fourth,  and  are  now  again  white  with  blos- 
soms. Another  friend,  C.  C.  Petitt,  told  me  recently  that 
Le  Conte  pear  trees  I  sold  him  seven  years  ago,  which  he 
planted  at  Dickinson,  have  bloomed  but  sparingly,  but  that 
others  I  sold  him  two  years  ago  are  white  with  blooms.  The 
first  lot.  were  taken  from  my  orchard  before  a  large  part  of  it 
began  to  bear,  or  before  I  knew  anything  of  these  facts,  but 
the  last,  now  in  bloom,  were  propagated  from  the  bearing 
trees. 

But  it  is  useless  to  multiply  instances  which  have  been 
furnished  me  regarding  the  various  fruits,  all  pointing  the 
same  way.  While  a  single  remove,  or  even  a  second  one, 
from  a  bearing  tree  might  not  affect  the  time  of  bearing 
much,  trees  grown  repeatedly  and  for  years  from  young  trees 
in  nursery  rows  will  certainly  be  much  later  in  coming  into 
bearing.  This  accounts  fully  for  the  fact  that  there  are  a 
great  number  of  pear  trees  in  this  section  now  six,  seven  and 
eight  years  old  that  have  borne  little  or  no  fruit,  and  pear  as 
well  as  apple  trees  all  over  the  country  which  have  behaved 
the  same  way.  The  pear  and  apple  are  particularly  affected 
thus,  and,  being  naturally  slow  to  bear,  no  cions  or  buds 
for  propagation  should  ever  be  taken  from  young  trees  in 
nursery  rows,  or  from  other  than  healthy  trees,  that  have 
come  into  full  bearing.  It  is  a  great  injustice  to  purchasers 
to  thus  keep  them  waiting  for  fruit  years  after  the  time  when 
trees  should  bear.  Every  pear  or  apple  tree  grown  from  a 
settled  bearing  tree  will  bear  full  the  fourth  or  fifth  year  at 
farthest. 

I  will  close  this  subject  with  several  quotations,  the  first 
from  an  unnamed  correspondent  of  The  Rural  New-  Yorker, 
the  second  from  Prof.  L.  H.  Bailey,  of  Cornell,  and  the 
others  bv  the  parties  whose  names  are  signed,  all  going  to 


46  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

show  the  vast  importance  of  propagating  from  the  healthiest 
and  most  productive  bearing  trees,  and  never  from  trees  in 
nursery,  except  new  varieties,  bearing  wood  of  which  cannot 
be  had. 

TWENTY-TWO  years  ago  I  set  an  orchard  of  180  trees — one  hun- 
dred Baldwin,  forty  Rhode  Island  Greening,  and  forty  Northern  Spy, 
the  three  most  profitable  apples,  as  I  thought,  to  be  set  at  that  time. 
After  the  orchard  had  been  set  five  or  six  years,  I  concluded  to 
change  the  tops  of  the  Northern  Spy  to  Baldwin,  as  the  Northern 
Spy  did  not  do  very  well  about  here  at  that  time.  Having  a  few 
older  Baldwin  trees  which  were  bearing  fine  crops  of  fruit,  I  selected 
scions  from  them,  and  soon  had  the  tops  changed. 

The  result  was  that  these  trees  commenced  bearing  five  or  six 
years  sooner,  have  always  borne  double  the  quantity,  and  of  better 
quality,  than  the  trees  that  were  budded  to  Baldwin  at  the  nursery, 
and  set  at  the  same  time,  under  the  same  conditions.  While  all  are 
now  fine,  healthy  trees,  those  that  were  budded  to  Baldwin  at  the 
nursery  make  the  most  wood  growth,  and  the  branches  are  longer 
and  more  reedy.  I  have  also  noticed  that,  while  these  trees  seemed 
to  have  as  much  bloom,  they  would  not  perfect  more  than  half  as 
much  fruit  as  those  with  the  changed  tops.  Who  will  tell  the  reason 
of  this  ? —  The  Rural  New-  Yorker. 

IT  is  probable  that  many  trees  fail  to  bear  because  propagated 
from  unproductive  trees.  We  know  that  no  two  trees  in  any  orchard 
are  alike,  either  in  the  amount  of  fruit  which  they  bear  or  in  their 
vigor  and  habit  of  growth.  Some  are  uniformly  productive,  and  some 
are  uniformly  unproductive.  We  know,  too,  that  scions  or  buds  tend 
to  reproduce  the  character  of  the  tree  from  which  they  are  taken.  A 
gardener*  would  never  think  of  taking  cuttings  from  a  rose  bush  or 
chrysanthemum  or  carnation  which  does  not  bear  flowers.  Why 
should  a  fruit-grower  take  scions  from  a  tree  which  he  knows  to  be 
unprofitable  ? 

The  indiscriminate  cutting  of  scions  is  too  clumsy  and  inexact  a 
practice  for  these  days,  when  we  are  trying  to  introduce  scientific 
methods  into  our  farming.  I  am  convinced  that  some  trees  cannot 
be  made  to  bear  by  any  amount  of  treatment.  They  are  not  the 
bearing  kind.  It  is  not  every  mare  which  will  breed  or  every  hen 
which  will  lay  a  hatfull  of  eggs. 

In  my  own  practice,  I  am  buying  the  best  nursery-grown  stock  of 
apples  (mostly  Spy),  and  am  top-grafting  them  with  scions  from  trees 
which  please  me,  and  which  I  know  to  have  been  productive  during 
many  years.  Time  will  discover  if  the  effort  is  worth  the  while,  but 
unless  all  analogies  fail  the  outcome  must  be  to  my  profit. — L.  H. 
BAILEY. 

MY  DEAR  SIR — I  have  your  letter  of  the  seventh  on  my  return 
from  the  North,  and  beg  to  say  I  have  read  with  great  interest  Mr. 
H.  M.  Stringfellow's  letter  in  the  Alvin  Sun,  which  was  enclosed  in 
your  letter. 


GROWING    TREES     FROM     BEARING     ONES.  47 

I  have  fought  Mr.  S.'s  battle  here  in  California.  I  know  he  is 
right.  I  have  seen  the  same  practice  which  he  narrates  applied  to 
the  olive,  and  only  six  berries  were  produced  from  an  orchard  of  over 
thirteen  hundred  trees,  after  the  most  diligent  and  careful  cultivation 
for  six  years,  while  cuttings  which  I  planted  at  the  same  time  (taken 
from  old  bearing  trees)  all  bore  fruit  the  third  year.  One  tree  bore 
eleven  gallons  the  fourth  year,  and  I  have  had  trees  bear  twenty-three 
gallons  the  fifth  year  and  a  barrel  the  sixth  year.  The  difference  be- 
tween an  orchard  of  thirteen  hundred  trees  bearing  six  olives  the 
sixth  year  and  a  single  tree  of  the  same  age  bearing  a  barrel,  thirty-one 
gallons,  of  fruit,  is  worth  noticing,  and  demands  investigation.  And 
yet,  right  here  in  Southern  California,  with  all  these  facts  before 
them,  there  are  nurserymen  who  still  persist  in  planting  cuttings  from 
trees  which  are  now  forty  or  fifty  years  old,  which  trees  never  pro- 
duced a  hatfull  of  olives,  which  trees  should  bear  one  hundred  gal- 
lons at  a  crop. 

I  never  plant  a  cutting  from  any  tree  which  has  not  produced 
fruit,  and  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  take  cuttings  from  the  oldest  bear- 
ing tree  in  the  country.  I  am  ready  to  guarantee  every  tree  I  sell  to 
bear  fruit  if  planted  here.  I  will  guarantee  75  per  cent,  to  bear  the 
third  year  and  every  tree  to  bear  the  fourth  year. 

Very  truly, 

FRANK  A.  KIMBALL. 

IT  OFTEN  happens  that  when  apple  trees  or  an  apple  orchard  has 
arrived  at  bearing  age,  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  (according  to  va- 
riety) (?),  while  making  a  good  growth  of  wood  every  year,  they  may 
fail  to  form  fruit  buds  and  bear  fruit.  In  many  instances  trees  have 
reached  the  age  of  twenty  years  or  more,  healthy,  vigorous  trees, 
that  have  not  produced  fruit  enough  to  pay  for  the  first  cost  of  tree 
and  transportation.  Now  there  are  a  good  many  who  would  be  glad 
to  know  if  there  are  any  means  by  which  such  trees  can  be  made  to 
bear.  It  is  a  well  known  law  of  vegetation  that  a  rapid-growing  tree 
or  plant  is  inclined  to  make  wood  buds  rather  than  fruit  buds,  and 
that  sap  has  a  strong  tendency  to  flow  into  terminal  buds  rather  than 
into  side  buds.  It  is  a  prevailing  opinion  of  experienced  horticultur- 
ists that  any  check  of  growth  has  the  effect  to  promote  the  growth  of 
fruit  buds — reproductive  organs.  I  have  known  instances  where 
flourishing  young  orchards,  that  had  always  been  under  cultivation, 
and  formed  no  fruit  buds  but  annually  a  rank  growth  of  wood,  have 
been  seeded  down  to  grass,  and  fruitfulness  followed  in  two  or  three 
years.  The  owners  believed  that  the  sod  checked  the  too  rampant 
growth  of  wood  and  induced  the  growth  of  fruit  buds.  Possibly 
they  were  right.  Again,  pear  growers  are  well  aware  that,  to  make 
rapid  growing  pear  trees  fruitful,  it  is  necessary  to  shorten-in  every 
year's  growth  to  promote  the  formation  of  fruit  buds.  This  fact  is 
so  well  known  as  to  be  unquestioned  by  well  informed  pear  growers. 
Why  may  not  the  same  methods  be  applied  to  apple  trees  ?  I  know 
that  it  would  be  a  tedious  operation  to  go  all  over  the  top  of  a  large 
apple  tree  and  shorten-in  the  previous  year's  growth,  but,  if  it  would 
cause  a  barren  tree  to  become  fruitful,  it  would  be  labor  well  ex- 


48  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

pended.  I  am  well  aware  that  many  other  causes  have  conspired,  of 
late  years,  to  prevent  apple  trees  with  an  abundance  of  fruit  buds 
from  producing  and  maturing  fruits — such  as  cold ;  protracted  rains 
when  in  blossom,  preventing  pollenation  ;  severe  frosts  while  in  bloom 
or  afterwards ;  fungus  on  young  fruit,  or  on  fruit  stems  or  on  the 
leaves ;  but,  when  no  bloom  appears  and  no  fruit  buds  are  found,  it  is 
in  vain  that  we  look  for  fruit.  The  shortening-in  process  would  not 
be  necessary  every  year.  If  practical  once  or  twice,  it  might  throw 
the  trees  into  fruitfulness,  and  then  the  check  upon  growth  caused  by 
bearing  fruit  might  promote  the  formation  of  fruit  buds. — P.  C. 
REYNOLDS,  in  Green's  Fruit- Grower. 

The  unfruitfulness  Mr.  Reynolds  here  alludes  to  is  plainly 
the  result  of  propagating  from  non-bearing  or  unproductive 
trees.  Instead  of  the  "many  other  causes"  why  trees  with 
an  abundance  of  fruit  buds  fail  to  bear,  if  he  had  laid  the 
trouble  to  the  annual  destruction  of  their  surface  roots  by 
the  plow  and  cultivator,  upon  which  roots  all  trees  depend 
for  the  setting  of  their  fruit,  he  would  have  hit  the  nail  on  the 
head.  Every  fruit-grower  can  find  evidence  of  this  around 
him,  and  the  experience  of  others  elsewhere  in  this  book  con- 
firms it.  While  it  is  a  fact  that  evaporation  is  less  from  a 
cultivated  surface  than  one  in  a  close-mowed  sod,  a  fair  test 
with  a  seedling  or  a  root-pruned  tree  will  demonstrate  in 
every  case  that  this  loss  of  moisture  is  far  over-balanced  by 
the  service  rendered  the  tree  by  its  unbroken  surface  roots. 
The  superiority  of  all  forest,  shade  and  nut  trees,  as  well  as 
seedling  fruit  trees,  in  uncultivated  ground  proves  this.  But 
here  let  me  again  impress  upon  my  readers  that  in  all  I  have 
to  say  about  non-cultivation  and  close  mowing  around  fruit 
trees,  reference  is  made  solely  to  those  grown  from  seed  where 
they  stand,  or  to  close  root-pruned  ones.  While  it  will  cause 
surface-rooted  trees  to  frequently  shed  their  fruit,  and  will 
ultimately  shorten  their  lives,  cultivation  for  them  is  a  neces- 
sary evil. 


CHAPTER   X. 

Winter  Budding. 

WHILE  summer  budding  is  one  of  the  most  common 
forms  of  tree  propagation,  a  friend  of  mine,  a  most 
progressive  horticulturist,  James  Hancock,  of  Bee- 
ville,  Texas,  has  been  for  some  time  practicing  a  different 
method  with  perfect  success  in  winter  and  early  spring,  before 
the  sap  begins  to  move  or  the  bark  will  separate  from  the 
wood.  I  also  tried  this  method  in  February  and  later  with 
perfect  success.  He  advises  cutting  off  a  little  of  the  wood 
with  bark  from  the  stock,  though  I  tried  some  with  bark  alone 
and  all  took.  The  accompanying  cut  (see  next  page)  will  illus- 
trate how  it  is  done.  Insert  the  knife  into  the  limb  or  stock, 
just  as  if  a  bud  was  to  be  cut  and  draw  it  downward  an  inch  or 
less,  pressing  the  cut  bark  back  a  little  to  keep  it  open.  (See 
Fig.  2,  on  limb.)  The  bud  is  then  slipped  down  next  to  the 
cut  surface  to  the  bottom.  It  is  best  to  make  the  bud  fully  as 
long  or  a  little  longer  than  the  cut  on  the  limb,  and  let  the  up- 
per end  lap  a  little.  The  flap  is  then  pressed  back,  and  tied 
firmly,  as  in  budding,  completely  covering  the  bud  itself.  Of 
course,  the  leaf  stalk  must  be  cut  off  close,  just  at  the  bud,  so 
the  flap  will  fit  tight.  Buds  can  be  put  in  thus  all  winter,  and 
especially  in  early  spring,  and  not  one  in  a  hundred  will  fail. 
This  method  is  especially  valuable  for  budding  large  trees  and 
limbs,  instead  of  top-grafting,  which  is  far  more  work,  and 
less  certain  to  succeed.  An  orchard  can  be  cut  back  and  very 
quickly  changed  into  another  variety  of  fruit  at  any  point 
above  the  ground  desired,  provided  the  bark  on  the  limbs  is 
smooth  enough  to  bud. 

The  past  spring,  just  before  the  leaves  pushed,  but  when 
the  buds  were  swollen,  I  saw  five  hundred  four-year-old 
peach  trees  thus  treated  by  top-budding  without  a  single  fail- 
ure. Five  and  six  buds  were  quickly  put  into  the  main  limbs 

(49) 


THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 


WINTER  BUDDING. 


WINTER     BUDDING.  51 

on  each  tree,  which  were  at  once  cut  back  to  within  a  foot  of 
the  buds.  These  buds  have  now  (May  5)  made  shoots  three 
feet  long.  Whether  this  is  absolutely  necessary  to  arrest  the 
movement  of  the  sap,  Mr.  Hancock  has  never  tested  by  leav- 
ing the  limb  entire,  but  as  there  is  practically  no  movement 
in  winter  it  would  seem  not.  There  would  be  no  objection  to 
cutting  back  in  a  cold  climate,  except  dying  off  of  limbs  so 
cut  in  case  of  a  freeze  after  the  sap  began  to  move  from  such 
severe  pruning.  Of  course,  after  the  buds  have  started  well, 
the  limbs  should  be  sawed  off  with  a  sloping  cut  close  above 
the  buds,  though  the  bud  in  the  cut  was  not  so  treated. 
Enough  shoots  of  the  stock  should  be  allowed  to  grow  below 
to  keep  the  tree  healthy,  which  could  be  cut  away  later  in  the 
season  or  the  following  year.  This  method  may  be  very  valu- 
able to  the  orange  growers  of  Florida  in  the  ordinary  propa- 
gation of  trees,  as  budding  by  the  common  method  often  fails. 
It  will  also  be  exceedingly  valuable  for  turning  large  trees  of 
pecans  and  other  nuts  into  the  finer  kinds,  and  must  entirely 
supersede  all  orchard  top-grafting,  which,  from  the  liability 
of  the  scion  to  dry  out,  is  a  very  uncertain  as  well  as  trouble- 
some process,  while  this  is  quick,  easy  and  certain.  More- 
over, why  could  it  not  be  used  by  nurserymen  for  budding 
during  winter  stocks  that  could  not  be  dormant  budded  in 
the  fall  before?  Or  perhaps  after  the  bark  ceases  to  slip  in 
the  fall  the  work  could  be  continued  by  this  method  then. 
Mr.  Hancock  has  not  found  it  as  convenient  or  successful 
during  the  ordinary  budding  season  as  the  common  method, 
nor  has  he  ever  tried  it  during  the  winter  before  February 
here,  but  has  had  uniform  success.  At  the  North,  perhaps 
just  when  the  buds  begin  to  swell  would  be  an  excellent 
time,  and  for  the  next  month.  I  omitted  saying  that  after 
inserting  the  bud  and  pressing  the  flap  back,  a  small  piece  of 
cotton  cloth  dipped  in  beeswax  should  be  laid  over  it  and 
then  tied  firmly,  as  in  common  budding.  That  will  prevent  air 
and  the  rain  from  entering,  and  all  will  live. 


CHAPTER   XL 

Grafting. 

WHILE  all  the  various  forms  of  ordinary  grafting  are 
well  understood,  and    need    no    description,  there    is 
a  form  practiced  by  my   friend,  E.  W.  Kirkpatrick, 
of  McKinney,    Texas,   an  old  nurseryman  and  fruit-grower, 
that  is  so  simple  and  uniformly  successful  with  all  kinds  of 
trees  and  vines,  that   it  deserves  to  be  more  widely  known. 


SCION    AND    STOCK    COMBINED. 


As  seen  from  the  illustration,  if  the  stock  to  be  grafted  is 
growing  in  the  ground,  cut  off  the  top  as  for  saddle  grafting, 
but  with  one  of  the  sloping  cuts  about  twice  as  long  as  the 
other,  as  shown.  Then  make  an  incision  into  the  side  of  the 
scion,  which  should  be  five  or  six  inches  long,  about  one-third 


GRAFTING. 


53 


of  the  length  from  the  top,  and,  inserting  the  lower  end  of 
the  scion,  sharpened  as  shown,  into  the  ground,  fit  the  cut 
place  on  to  the  stock,  placing  the  long  side  of  the  cut  surface 
of  the  stock  next  to  the  scion.  Bring  the  edges  together  on 
one  side,  press  the  scion  down  firmly,  and  no  tying  will  be 
necessary,  but  bank  the  moist  earth  well  over  the  union,  and 
pack.  The  scion  then  becomes  practically  a  cutting  as  well  as 
a  graft,  and  generally  takes  root  from  the  lower  end,  as  well 
as  unites  with  the  stock.  This  method  is  equally  suited  for 
house  grafting,  if  tied  to  keep  the  stock  and  scion  together 
until  planted. 

Another  method,  particularly  well  adapted  to  the  vine,  and 
a  modification  of  cleft  grafting,  that  rarely  fails  of  success  on 
the  grape,  done  either  in  winter,  spring,  or  after  the  vine  is 
in  full  growth,  provided  the  scions  have  been  kept  dormant. 
Select  a  smooth  place  on  the  vine  near  or  just  under  the 
ground,  and  make  a  downward  sloping  cut,  one-third  or  one- 
half  through  the  stock,  according  to 
size,  as  shown  in  the  illustration.  A 
well-ripened  scion  with  one  or  two  buds 
is  then  cut  as  for  cleft  grafting,  except 
that  the  cuts,  are  made  sloping,  so  as  to 
bring  one  side  of  the  scion  to  an  edge, 
which  is  to  be  inserted  in  the  side  cut  of 
the  stock,  so  as  to  bring  the  face  or 
broad  side  of  the  scion  flush 
and  even  with  one  edge  of 
the  cut  in  the  stock.  A  few 
wraps  of  strong  string  will 
bring  the  surfaces  on  small 
stocks  closer  together,  but 
large  stocks  will  bind  the  scion 
tight  enough.  Cover  the  whole 
SIDE  GRAFTING.  scion  with  moist  earth  until 

growth  starts,  when  the  top  should  be  cut  away.  I  omitted 
to  say  that  from  the  middle  of  September  to  the  middle  of 
October  here,  perhaps  August  at  the  North,  is  an  excellent 
time  to  graft  all  kinds  of  trees,  with  scarcely  a  failure. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Why   Trees  in  Bottoms  never  Drown — Aeration. 

FEW  persons,  unless  they  have  tested  it,  have  any  idea  of 
that  peculiar  quality  that  soils  never  disturbed  deeply 
have  of  holding  water  on  the  surface,  in  ponds,  for 
instance,  for  years,  and  yet  immediately  after  being  drained, 
if  examined,  the  ground  will  be  found  friable  and  ready  for 
the  plow  just  beneath.  I  once  undertook  to  grow  carp,  and 
for  two  years  kept  a  small  pond  filled  with  water  ;  but  find- 
ing the  venture  a  failure,  and  having  drained  the  water  off, 
the  idea  occurred  to  me  to  examine  the  bottom  at  once,  and 
see  how  deep  the  mud  was.  To  my  amazement,  it  was  only 
about  three  or  four  inches  deep,  and  on  being  scraped  away 
with  a  hoe,  the  bottom  was  actually  ready  for  the  plow.  The 
few  inches  of  previously  stirred  surface  was  mud,  but  the 
balance  firm.  This  peculiarity  of  unbroken  ground  not  tak- 
ing up  and  holding  water  in  it  in  a  free  or  mud  state  is  a  wise 
provision  of  nature,  and  accounts  for  the  fact  that  wild  grape 
vines  and  forest  trees  in  river  bottoms  are  often,  for  weeks, 
several  feet  under  water  without  the  slightest  harm.  Had 
such  ground  been  deeply  plowed,  and  especially  subsoiled, 
trees  in  such  locations  would  certainly  be  killed.  But  never 
having  been  disturbed,  the  particles  of  soil  are  in  that  pecu- 
liar natural  relation  to  each  other  that,  while  they  readily 
admit  between  them  a  certain  quantity  of  water,  and  allow  its 
passage  through  to  the  roots  and  subsoil,  it  is  impossible  to 
make  such  undisturbed  ground  take  more  than  that  specified 
amount,  and  so  tree  roots  under  such  circumstances  are  not 
by  any  means  standing  in  mud  several  feet  deep,  as  many 
people  ignorantly  suppose.  While  I  am  sure  all  my  readers 
can  recall  instances  in  their  own  knowledge  of  trees  standing 
thus  in  water  for  weeks  in  low  places,  and  apparently  enjoy- 
ing the  bath,  a  most  remarkable  instance  was  told  me 

(54) 


WHY    TREES    IN    BOTTOMS    NEVER    DROWN AERATION.          55 

recently  by  a  gentleman,  who  knows  of  three  pecan  trees 
that  have  stood  for  two  years  on  stiff  land  in  North  Texas, 
with  about  one  foot  of  water  continuously  covering  the 
whole  surface  of  the  ground  for  several  hundred  feet.  They 
bear  fine  pecans  just  as  regularly  as  other  trees,  which  fall 
upon  the  water  every  year  and  are  blown  ashore  by  the  wind, 
some  of  which  he  has  thus  gathered  and  eaten.  Could  that 
water  be  drained  off  and  the  earth  examined  below,  it  would 
be  found  practically  just  like  any  ordinary  well-drained  land 
after  rain.  Just  that  wet,  and  no  more.  Who  doubts  the 
fate  of  those  trees  if  the  ground  had  been  deeply  plowed  and 
then  thus  flooded  ?  But  to  a  limited  degree  for  a  few  days 
after  excessive  rains,  all  deeply  stirred  land  is  in  a  condition 
of  mud,  and  the  fine  fibrous  feeding  roots  of  all  fruit  trees  on 
such  ground  must  necessairly  be  either  scalded  and  drowned 
out,  more  or  less,  in  summer,  or  seriously  injured  by  severe 
cold  after  such  excessive  rains  in  winter.  After  being  once 
disturbed  deeply,  it  requires  many  years  to  again  compact  the 
soil  and  bring  it  into  its  original  state.  This  can  easily  be 
proved  by  examining,  after  continued  rains,  trees  that  were 
planted  in  large,  deep  holes,  though  it  readily  shows  for  itself 
if  the  rain  be  accompanied  with  a  strong  wind.  In  such  case, 
fruit  trees  six  or  seven  years  or  more  of  age  are  often  twisted 
or  bent  half  over  from  working  in  the  soft  earth,  and  some- 
times are  blown  flat.  It  is  true  that  this  is  largely  due  to 
long  roots  when  planted,  but  in  any  case  such  a  saturated 
mud  condition  of  deeply  stirred  soil  cannot  but  be  injurious 
to  a  tree,  and  is  undoubtedly  the  chief  cause  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  different  forms  of  root  tumor  and  rot  now  so  com- 
mon in  the  South,  and  doubtless  of  yellows  and  black-knot, 
as  well  as  other  root  diseases  at  the  North.  Could  there  be 
more  convincing  proof  that  the  whole  theory  and  practice  of 
deep  plowing  and  large  holes  for  trees  is  wrong  and  contrary 
to  nature,  than  the  health,  vigor  and  long  life  of  forest  as  well 
as  all  chance  seedling  fruit  trees  on  firm  unbroken  soil? 

But,  referring  again  to  the  pecan  tree  in  water,  alluded  to 
above,  do  trees  need  aeration  ?  While  it  is  undoubtedly  of 
great  service  to  all  soils  in  their  preparation  for  crops,  once 


56  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

in  the  ground  there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  to  prove  that 
the  admission  of  air  to  the  roots  of  any  tree  or  plant  by 
ploughing  or  cultivation  is  of  any  real  benefit.  The  facts 
now  given  will  show  that  the  theory  or  belief  that,  somehow 
or  other,  an  extra  supply  of  air  over  and  above  that  naturally 
contained  in  all  firm  soils  is  beneficial  to  tree  roots  in  cultiva- 
tion is  a  mistake.  I  had  a  row  of  bearing  orange  trees  many 
years  ago,  standing  just  behind  my  front  fence,  in  the  western 
part  of  the  city  of  Galveston.  After  the  great  storm  of  1875 
a  vast  amount  of  sand  was  washed  up  from  the  beach,  close 
to  which  my  place  was  situated,  and  deposited  in  the  street 
just  outside.  By  summer  the  strong  south  winds  had  blown 
the  most  of  it  through  my  picket  fence,  and  banked  it  up  from 
three  to  four  feet  around  the  bodies  of  the  orange  trees. 
Many  people  thought  it  would  hurt  them,  but  believing  to  the 
contrary,  I  leveled  it  all  down  nicely,  leaving  the  bodies 
standing  fully  three  feet  in  beach  sand.  On  this  was  spread 
a  heavy  coat  of  barnyard  manure.  The  next  year  those  trees 
made  a  most  remarkably  strong  growth,  and  continued  to  do 
well  until  killed  by  the  freeze  of  1886. 

Another  instance  occurred  last  fall.  When  passing  along 
near  the  sidewalk  of  a  friend  in  this  city,  who  had  a  long  row 
of  live  oaks  five  to  eight  inches  in  diameter  standing  on  low 
ground  which  he  was  about  to  fill  up,  I  saw  that  he  had  taken 
up  about  half  of  the  trees,  and  raised  them  several  feet,  as 
the  sidewalk  was  being  filled  in.  I  told  him  about  my  orange 
trees,  and  advised  him  to  treat  his  oaks  the  same  way.  He 
did  so,  filling  in  with  good  earth  from  the  mainland.  The 
result  was  continued  good  health,  and  a  fine  growth  the  past 
season.  While  the  filling  on  the  public  square  with  strong 
manure,  as  noted  elsewhere,  was  very  injurious,  any  quantity 
of  soil  can  be  placed  around  trees  with  safety,  if  not  actual 
benefit. 

After  all,  is  not  cultivation  really  only  a  necessary  evil  ? 
For  trees,  facts  clearly  point  that  way.  For  certain  annual 
crops,  that  grow  when  the  weeds  do,  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  cultivate,  to  prevent  the  weeds  from  appropriating 
a  large  share  of  plant  food  and  moisture,  and  also  equally 


WHY    TREES    IN    BOTTOMS    NEVER    DROWN AERATION.  57 

important  to  shade  the  earth  around  growing  plants,  and 
keep  down  evaporation.  Still,  do  we  not,  by  inverting  the 
soil  and  putting  the  humus  at  the  bottom  instead  of  the  top, 
where  nature  puts  it,  and  also  by  exposing  the  pulverized 
surface  to  the  leaching  of  heavy  rains,  which  carry  off  far 
more  soluble  plant  food  than  is  appropriated  by  the  trees, 
really  do  our  orchards  more  harm  than  good  ?  .  We  cultivate 
and  crop  our  lands  until,  if  no  fertilizer  is  added,  they  ulti- 
mately refuse  to  produce,  and  we  turn  them  out  as  old  fields. 
Nature  then  plants  them  with  trees,  and  not  only  grows  a 
vigorous  crop  from  year  to  year,  but  rapidly  renews  the 
fertility  of  the  soil  itself  by  depositing  vegetable  matter  on 
the  surface  where,  exposed  to  air,  heat  and  moisture,  it  is 
continually  rendering  plant  food  soluble,  and  returning  it  to 
the  storehouse  of  the  earth.  Why,  if  nature  can  rear  an 
immense  forest  growth  on  impoverished  land,  and  in  the 
course  of  time  return  it  to  us  rich,  cannot  we  grow  fruit  trees 
by  the  same  method  ?  The  leaves,  grass  clippings,  and 
annual  dying  of  the  surface  roots  of  the  sod,  leave  the 
vegetable  matter  just  where  the  elements  can,  through  its 
decomposition,  prepare  food  for  the  tree  roots,  to  supplement 
which  I  propose  an  annual  top-dressing.  And  yet,  reason- 
able and  natural  as  this  treatment  of  an  orchard  is,  men  will 
theorize  about  the  vast  excess  of  evaporation  from  a  sod  sur- 
face over  a  cultivated  one,  and  demonstrate  to  a  certainty 
how  superior  the  latter  must  be ;  but  nature  laughs  at  them, 
with  her  vigorous  and  productive  old  seedling  trees,  in  out- 
of-the-way  places,  while  everywhere  throughout  the  country, 
continually,  cultivated  trees  become  diseased  early,  fail  to 
bear  regular  crops,  and  die  young. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

Grapes. 

AS  TO  grapes,  and  the  adaptability  of  various  kinds  to 
the  different  sections  of  the  country,  it  is  certain 
that  the  practice  of  close  root-pruning  is  going  to 
make  some  radical  changes.  As  remarked  elsewhere,  the 
grape  becomes  permanently  very  surface-rooted  when  grown 
from  long-rooted  vines,  but  roots  exceedingly  deep  from  a 
close  root-pruned  one.  The  question  is,  How  far  is  this  go- 
ing to  influence  the  behavior  of  vines  in  given  localities?  As, 
for  instance,  it  did  the  old  Herbemont  on  my  former  Hitch- 
cock place.  That  vine,  taken  up  when  six  years  old,  closely 
root  and  top-pruned  and  replanted,  has  made  an  extraordi- 
nary growth,  and  is  bearing  enormous  crops  every  year.  It 
is  entirely  free  from  all  disease,  while  the  same  variety,  as 
ordinarily  planted  and  cultivated,  rots  in  the  neighborhood 
nearly  every  year.  The  general  opinion  in  South  Texas  has 
been,  that  all  the  Labrusca  and  their  hybrids  are  short-lived. 
As  all  those  grapes  bear  very  heavily,  and  are  nearly  always 
allowed  to  overbear,  may  it  not  be  that  this  and  long, 
fibrous  roots  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  trouble,  if  it  be  true  ? 
Not  caring  to  retain  any  of  them  after  a  fair  test,  and  finding 
them  unsuited  for  distant  shipment,  owing  to  early  shelling 
of  the  berries,  I  always  threw  them  out,  having  so  many 
experiments  on  hand.  Thus  I  never  kept  any  of  the  La- 
brusca over  four  or  five  years.  My  tests  of  the  American 
varieties  included  over  fifty  of  the  latest  and  most  prominent, 
and  out  of  the  whole  list,  I  would  unhesitatingly  select  the 
Lindley  for  South  Texas,  as  the  very  best  early  light-red 
grape,  though  it  does  not  set  its  fruit  well  unless  planted 
near  or  alternated  in  rows  with  a  staminate  variety,  such  as 
the  Agawam  or  Salem.  The  two  latter  are  by  far  the  largest 
and  best  dark-red  grapes,  while  Wilder  easily  stands  at  the 

(58) 


GRAPES.  59 

head  of  the  blacks.  The  Niagara  is  the  very  best  white  or 
golden  grape,  being  of  larger  size  and  more  productive  than 
Moore's  Diamond,  as  well  as  a  much  stronger  grower.  These 
are  the  cream  of  all  the  American  grapes,  as  table  grapes,  for 
South  Texas.  Of  course,  in  the  Gulf  Coast  and  southwest- 
ern part  of  Texas,  the  old  Herbemont  and  Lenoir  or  Black 
Spanish  are  the  standard  wine  and  arbor  grapes,  though  they 
are  of  little  value  for  market.  But  while  all  the  grapes  recom- 
mended above  are  excellent  for  home  use  and  markets  that  can 
be  reached  in  one  day  or  less,  it  would  be  useless  to  plant 
them  or  any  other  American  grape  largely  for  more  distant 
shipment.  They  will  all  shell  off,  or  drop  from  the  bunch,  in 
our  hot  summer  weather,  after  being  gathered,  at  the  end  of 
that  time.  After  July  the  northern  and  California  grapes 
take  our  markets,  and  prices  rule  very  low.  While  some  of 
the  Munson  and  other  American  grapes  will  hang  quite  late 
in  the  summer,  it  scarcely  pays  to  leave  them,  on  account  of 
depredations  by  the  birds,  unless  constantly  watched.  For 
wine  growing,  except  on  a  small  scale  for  local  markets,  we 
can  never  compete  with  California,  as  grapes  are  grown  more 
cheaply  there  than  here.  But  while  most  of  the  Vinifera  are 
unsuited  to  Texas,  except  the  southwestern  portion,  around 
Beeville  and  near  the  coast,  where  they  are  proving  very  suc- 
cessful, it  is  highly  probable  that  the  Chasselas  de  Fontaine- 
bleu  will  also  prove  at  home  in  the  eastern  coast  district, 
several  vines  being  now  in  full  bearing  on  Galveston  Island. 

Grapes  mature  very  early  in  the  Southwest,  the  Chasselas 
coming  in  about  the  5th  of  June,  and  in  Galveston  county  but 
a  very  short  time  afterwards.  Of  course,  all  vines  should 
be  closely  root-pruned,  set  in  as  small  a  hole  as  practicable, 
and  well  rammed.  In  the  matter  of  training,  they  are  almost 
exclusively  adopting  the  California  low  head,  no  trellis, 
system,  in  Southwest  Texas,  and  the  same  plan  would 
answer  well  for  the  Chasselas  in  the  eastern  coast  region. 
But  all  the  American  grapes  seem  to  do  better  on  somewhat 
longer  pruning,  though  I  know  of  vines  that  have  given  good 
crops  on  the  above  plan.  As  a  rule,  perhaps,  the  renewal 
system  of  several  new  canes,  about  three  feet  long  for  vines 


60  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

in  full  bearing,  trained  fan-shape  to  a  trellis  of  three  wires, 
will  furnish  all  the  fruit  that  any  vine  should  carry.  I  would 
earnestly  caution  against  overbearing  all  through  the  life  of  a 
grape  vine,  and  especially  of  young  ones  the  first  few 
years.  This  is  the  cause  of  the  failure  and  early  death  of 
nine  out  of  ten  vines  that  break  down.  One  good  bunch  to  a 
shoot  is  all  that  should  be  left  until  the  vines  get  strong. 

As  to  fertilizer,  bone  and  potash  will  supply  all  the  food  a 
vine  requires,  and  potash  is  especially  important  for  their 
health.  Where  cotton-seed  hull  ashes  or  plenty  of  wood  ashes 
can  be  had,  there  is  nothing  better.  As  to  insects,  the 
most  serious  enemy  to  the  grape  in  the  South  is  the  leaf 
roller ;  and  while  he  never  attacks  the  smooth,  thin  leaves  of 
the  Vinifera,  he  rarely  allows  the  woolly  leaves  of  the 
Labrusca  or  its  hybrids  to  escape.  One  spraying  with  Paris 
green  and  a  little  lime,  at  the  rate  of  one  pound  of  the  green 
to  one  hundred  or  even  one  hundred  and  fifty  gallons  of  lime 
water,  when  the  berries  are  half  grown,  will  be  washed  off 
before  the  fruit  ripens,  but  will  protect  entirely  until 
the  fruit  has  been  sold,  when  another  will  carry  the 
vines  through  the  summer.  The  birds  are  the  only  other 
enemy,  and  while  there  are  not  so  many  in  Southwest  Texas, 
they  are  exceedingly  destructive  everywhere  else  throughout 
the  South.  The  very  best  remedy  is  to  pepper  them  with  peas 
from  a  gun,  or  very  fine  shot  at  long  range,  for  a  few  days, 
when  the  fruit  begins  to  ripen.  It  is  astonishing  how  quickly 
they  will  communicate  the  fact  when  they  are  struck.  Dead 
birds,  like  dead  men,  tell  no  tales,  but  lives  ones  are  quick  to 
do  it.  However,  it  is  highly  probable  that  birds  attack 
grapes  much  oftener  to  quench  their  thirst  than  to  obtain  food, 
and  if  shallow  vessels  of  water  are  placed  at  intervals 
throughout  the  vineyard,  the  loss  of  fruit  will  be  very  small. 

In  marketing  the  fruit,  it  should  always  be  gathered  in 
shallow  boxes,  with  cleats  on  the  ends  for  handles,  so  they 
can  be  piled  up  on  each  other,  in  hauling  to  the  packing 
house.  There  it  should  remain  over  until  the  next  day,  to 
allow  the  stems  to  wilt,  so  that  the  bunches  will  lose  their 
rigidity  and  pack  more  closely  without  bruising.  All  broken, 


GRAPES.  6l 

green  or  decayed  berries  should  be  clipped  from  the  bunches 
with  sharp-pointed  grape  scissors.  The  5-  and  g-pound  bas- 
kets are  the  most  common  packages,  but  they  are  not  only 
more  inconvenient  for  packing  in  the  car,  but  are  too  close 
for  the  far  South,  in  hot  weather.  The  square  box  or  crate, 
with  four  5-pound  baskets,  such  as  seems  to  be  in  general  use 
in  California,  is  far  better,  and  they  should  be  well  filled,  so 
the  cover  will  fit  tightly,  to  prevent  shaking.  The  catalogues 
will  furnish  a  very  extensive  list  for  those  who  want  variety, 
even  though  inferior  grapes. 

But  there  is  one  other  grand  but  neglected  old  grape  for 
home  use,  both  for  the  table  and  for  wine.  I  allude  to  the 
Scuppernong,  which,  while  it  grows  everywhere  like  a  weed, 
has  failed  hitherto  to  set  its  fruit.  The  cause  is  now  very 
plain.  Simply  the  old  trouble  of  pistillate  blooms.  Mr.  S. 
N.  Richardson,  of  Alvin,  tells  me  that  he  has  tried  it,  and 
named  a  party  in  Columbia  who  had  the  same  experience  on 
a  large  scale.  If  the  common  male  Muscadine,  which  blooms 
just  when  the  Scuppermong  does,  is  planted  close  by,  instead 
of  dropping  its  fruit,  as  it  always  does,  the  latter  will  bear 
every  year,  and  most  profusely.  This  is  a  very  important 
fact,  for  this  famous  old  southern  vine,  if  trellised,  will  cover 
an  acre,  and  asks  no  other  favors  than  a  good  annual  dress- 
ing of  potash  in  some  form,  and  then  to  have  its  roots  let 
alone.  For  chicken  yard,  around  back  doors,  or  wherever 
shade  is  desired,  it  will  not  only  answer  that  useful  purpose, 
but  also  bear  loads  of  delicious  grapes  for  wine  or  table  use. 

As  to  distance  for  planting,  eight  feet  each  way  between 
the  Labrusca  varieties  will  be  sufficient,  but  twelve  feet  or 
more  is  best  for  the  Herbemont  and  Lenoir  in  the  immediate 
coast  country.  Around  San  Antonio  and  in  Southwest 
Texas,  however,  they  succeed  well  stump-pruned,  like  the 
Vinifera  in  California,  but  the  climate  is  dryer  in  that  portion 
of  Texas,  and  vines  are  less  subject  to  rot.  While  clean 
cultivation  is  now  the  rule,  I  propose  planting  a  small  vine- 
yard, as  an  experiment,  with  twelve  feet  between  rows  and 
vines  four  feet  in  the  rows.  After  cultivating  for  a  year  very 
shallow,  they  will  be  put  down  to  grass  and  mowed  often 


62  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

enough  to  keep  it  short,  and  surface  roots  will  not  be  broken 
again.  There  are  many  isolated  vines  thus  treated  that  are 
bearing  heavy  annual  crops  with  no  spraying,  while  plowed 
and  cultivated  vines  rot  every  year.  In  fertilizing,  beware  of 
cotton-seed  meal  or  other  manures  rich  in  ammonia,  as  that 
element  is  very  apt  to  produce  rot  in  the  fruit.  A  good 
annual  dressing  of  some  form  of  potash  and  phosphoric  acid 
will  make  vigorous  vines  and  plenty  of  fruit. 

As  to  spraying,  while  some  have  not  found  any  benefit 
from  it  on  fruit  trees,  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  most  sections 
of  the  country  it  is  an  absolute  necessity  for  sound  grapes, 
and  while  it  will  not  prevent  blight  on  the  pear,  it  does  add 
greatly  to  the  appearance  of  the  fruit. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

The  Apple. 

HAVING  spent  the  last  thirty  years  of  my  life  on  the  im- 
mediate Gulf  coast,  my  experience  with  apples  is  nec- 
essarily limited,  and  as  a  book  on  horticulture  would 
not  be  complete  without  a  notice  of  this  best  of  all  fruits,  I 
append  on  that  subject  a  most  excellent  article  from  the 
Southern  States,  by  Prof.  M.  B.  Milliard,  of  the  Louisiana  Ex- 
periment Station.  He  is  known  as  an  authority  on  horticul- 
ture in  the  far  South,  and  his  suggestions  are  well  worth  the 
careful  attention  of  all  fruit  growers.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
the  apple  as  a  money  maker  has  been  very  greatly  overlooked 
in  the  southern  states,  even  when  grown  from  long-rooted 
trees,  which  in  our  hot  climate  tends  greatly  to  dwarf  them, 
by  compelling  them  to  take  on  a  surface  system  of  roots,  in- 
stead of  penetrating  deeply,  which  they  would  do  if  their 
roots  were  closely  pruned.  That  this  is  true  is  clearly  shown 
by  the  two  very  large  apple  trees  now  growing  near  Hitch- 
cock, Galveston  Co.,  on  Mr.  H.  Perthuis'  old  place.  Those 
trees  were  a  great  puzzle  for  several  years,  and  induced  me 
to  plant  two  hundred  apple  trees  at  the  same  time  I  planted 
my  pear  orchard.  While  that  variety  is  not  suited  to  this 
locality,  as  far  as  productiveness  is  concerned  (nor  is  it  prob- 
able that  any  apple  would  pay  on  the  Gulf  coast),  still  those 
two  trees  clearly  show  that  if  planted  right,  the  apple  will 
make  a  large  tree  even  here.  Those  two  trees  are  now  about 
twenty  years  old,  and  their  history,  as  given  by  Mr.  Perthuis, 
is  as  follows  : 

During  a  visit  to  Houston  he  saw  a  thrifty  young  apple 
tree  in  the  yard  of  a  friend,  and  when  about  to  return  he  cut 
off  a  shoot  with  the  intention  of  grafting  several  quince  trees 
on  his  place  at  Hitchcock.  On  reaching  home  he  cut  the 
shoot  in  half  and  stuck  the  two  pieces  into  the  ground  for  a 

(63) 


64  THE    NEW    HORTICULTURE. 

few  days.  Being  busy,  they  remained  there  several  weeks, 
and  when  he  finally  took  them  up  for  grafting,  he  was  sur- 
prised to  find  little  roots  just  starting  from  the  lower  ends. 
He  at  once  set  them  out  about  twenty  feet  apart,  where  they 
took  root,  made  a  rapid  growth,  and  long  ago  their  branches 
met,  the  bodies  near  the  ground  being  over  one  foot  in  diam- 
eter. While  not  very  productive,  owing  to  the  variety  not 
being  adapted  this  far  South,  these  trees  have  been  models 
of  health  and  vigor,  though  for  many  years  they  have  stood 
in  the  sod.  The  two  hundred  trees  I  was  induced  to  plant 
from  the  conduct  of  these  two  were  set  with  very  long  roots, 
and  after  growing  moderately  well  for  several  years,  finally 
assumed  such  a  dwarf  habit,  though  given  the  best  of  culture 
and,  being  between  rows  of  pear  trees,  that  they  were  dug  up 
and  thrown  out.  I  had  then  found  out  the  value  of  root- 
pruning,  and  was  not  surprised  to  see  perfectly  flat,  lateral 
and  surface  root  systems  on  them  all,  not  one  having  struck  a 
single  tap-root.  That  is  plainly  the  cause  of  the  dwarf  habit 
all  apple  trees  assume  in  the  far  South,  and  it  is  possible  that 
some  of  the  southern  winter  varieties  named  in  Prof.  Mil- 
liard's excellent  article  may  be  adapted  even  here,  if  closely 
root-pruned  when  planted.  This  is  one  fruit,  however,  that 
should  be  planted  in  the  valleys  all  over  Texas  and  the  South. 
It  blooms  late,  is  never  caught  by  frost,  and,  like  the  pear, 
loves  a  moist  location.  It  is  hard  to  hurt  an  apple  tree  with 
water,  and  its  general  failure  to  do  well  in  the  far  South  is 
due,  next  to  leaving  long  roots,  more  to  planting  on  high, 
dry  locations  than  anything  else.  In  the  valley  near  the 
Hannah  Springs,  at  Lampasas,  are  a  dozen  or  more  thrifty 
apple  trees,  planted  nobody  knows  just  when,  and  being  on 
the  Springs  property,  were  turned  out  on  the  common  fifteen 
years  ago.  They  have  never  failed  a  single  crop  during  that 
time,  as  I  was  informed  by  a  resident  who  had  known  of 
them  that  long,  and  when  I  saw  them  recently,  every  tree 
was  overloaded,  but  looking  fresh  and  green.  The  remark- 
able point  about  those  trees  was  that  not  a  sign  of  a  worm  or 
insect  could  be  found  upon  either  fruit  or  leaves.  Unfortu- 
nately, while  there  are  plainly  six  varieties,  nobody  knows 


THE     APPLE.  65 

what  they  are,  as  the  fruit  is  never  allowed  to  get  more  than 
half  grown  before  it  is  carried  off  by  the  public.  If  the 
suitability  of  the  valleys  of  the  interior  of  Texas  for  apple 
culture  is  to  be  judged  by  the  way  those  trees  have  done  for 
many  years,  certainly  the  fruit-growers  of  our  state  are  mak- 
ing a  great  mistake  in  neglecting  to  plant  extensive  orchards 
of  this  staple  and  most  profitable  of  all  fruits  on  some  of  the 
rich  bottom  lands  now  given  entirely  to  corn  and  cotton. 

But  whatever  our  southern  brethren  do,  the  fruit-growers 
of  the  apple  states  will  make  no  mistake  to  begin  now  to  set 
close  root-pruned  apple  trees.  The  orchards  of  the  last  de- 
cade or  more  have  all  been  planted  with  large,  long-rooted 
trees,  and  no  amount  of  cultivation  or  care  will  prolong  their 
usefulness  over  twelve  or  fifteen  years.  It  takes  but  a  few 
full  crops  to  break  down  trees  the  bulk  of  whose  roots  are  in 
the  upper  twelve  inches  of  the  soil,  and  the  man  who  selects 
the  best  varieties  now,  root-prunes  closely,  plants  in  small 
holes,  rams  tight,  cultivates  well  for  a  few  years,  and  then 
puts  down  to  Bermuda,  blue  grass,  or  other  sod,  and  pastures 
or  mows  it,  not  forgetting  to  top-dress  well  around  the  trees 
each  year  with  some  good  fertilizer,  will,  if  his  trees  are  prop- 
agated from  productive,  bearing  ones,  begin  in  four  or  five 
years  to  reap  a  rich  harvest,  and  have  an  orchard  that  will 
long  outlive  him,  and  be  the  safest  legacy  he  can  leave  his 
children.  As  to  all  the  talk  about  the  old,  choice  varieties  of 
winter  apples  running  out,  it  may  be  set  down  as  talk  and 
nothing  else.  They  have  been  run  out  by  the  persistent 
persecution  they  have  been  subjected  to,  in  the  form  of  trees 
used,  and  the  continual  cutting  of  their  roots  with  the  plow, 
together  with  overbearing.  There  is  not  to-day  an  apple  in 
the  country  that,  if  put  upon  a  vigorous,  healthy,  close  root- 
pruned  stock,  will  not  bear  as  fine  fruit  as  it  did  the  first 
crop  it  ever  bore,  provided  its  roots  are  let  alone  when  the 
tree  begins  to  bear.  As  bearing  on  this  point  I  give  the 
following  letter: 


66  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

CASPIANA,  LA.,  Dec.  75,  1905. 
H.  M.  STRINGFELLOW. 

Dear  Sir — Seeing  your  remarks  in  Farm  and  Ranch  on  your  suc- 
cess with  Terry  Winter  Apple  in  sod,  leads  me  to  inquire  why  we  are 
now  unable  to  grow  winter  apples  here  in  the  Red  River  Valley  like 
we  did  years  ago.  We  live  at  Caspiana,  La.,  twenty  miles  below 
Shrevesport,  and  when  we  bought  the  plantation,  just  after  the  war, 
found  two  large  apple  trees  growing  near  a  small  house  on  the  bank 
of  the  river.  They  were  different  kinds,  but  both  fine  large  apples, 
one  very  red,  and  never  failed  to  bear  full  crops.  The  ground  was 
never  disturbed,  and  we  had  no  trouble  in  keeping  the  fruit  all  through 
the  winter  and  often  took  samples  to  the  Shrevesport  merchants,  who 
said  they  were  far  superior,  especially  in  quality,  to  any  of  the 
imported  apples.  Finally,  at  their  suggestion,  we  sent  Stark  Bros, 
cuttings  of  both  kinds,  which  we  named  Numbers  i  and  2,  as  nobody 
could  identify  them,  with  an  order  to  propagate  one  hundred  trees. 
They  did  so,  and  we  planted  them  twenty  feet  apart,  cultivated  clean 
ever  since,  until  now  the  branches  are  lapping ;  but,  though  about 
fifteen  years  old  and  apparently  perfectly  healthy,  we  have  never  had 
a  single  ripe  apple.  The  trees  bloom  every  spring,  set  full  of  fruit, 
but  all  of  it  rots  in  midsummer  and  falls  off.  Shortly  after  sending 
the  wood  to  Stark  Bros,  a  big  rise  in  the  river  caused  the  bank  to 
cave,  carrying  away  both  of  the  old  apple  trees.  Do  you  think  clean 
cultivation  is  the  cause  of  the  fruit  rotting? 

Yours  truly, 

A.  E.  HUTCHINSON. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

The  Pear. 

pear  having  now  established  itself  as  the  leading 
fruit  of  the  Gulf  coast,  except  that  portion  devoted  to 
the  orange,  and  its  general  management  having  been 
so  fully  given  in  horticultural  journals,  as  well  as  books,  little 
remains  to  be  said,  except  to  mention  the  varieties  best  suited 
to  the  far  South.  And  first,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the 
experience  of  the  last  few  years  has  quite  definitely  settled 
the  question  as  to  the  blight  ever  becoming  a  cause  for  alarm 
here,  if  orchards  are  allowed  to  take  their  natural  rest  during 
the  winter.  That  bearing  orchards  should  be  neither  plowed, 
fertilized  nor  pruned  at  that  time  is  certain.  There  is 
scarcely  a  doubt  that  trees  thus  treated  will  remain  perma- 
nently healthy  if  not  allowed  to  greatly  overbear.  It  is  true 
that  all  the  bearing  orchards  have  been  grown  from  more  or 
less  long-rooted  trees,  but  the  native  vigor  of  the  Chinese 
pears  is  so  great,  and  the  water  level  so  near  the  surface, 
that  the  natural  motion  of  the  sap  is  likely  always  to  be  main- 
tained during  the  growing  season.  This  is  shown  plainly 
from  the  fact  that  the  leaves  remain  fresh  and  green  on  the 
trees  until  December.  It  is  to  this  fact  that  this  section  owes 
its  remarkable  exemption  from  blight  ;  for  if  the  trees  are  not 
stimulated  during  winter,  the  sap  will  remain  dormant  until 
the  proper  time  for  growth  in  spring.  As  to  varieties  for  the 
Gulf  coast  region,  it  may  be  well  to  repeat  that  the  experi- 
ence of  thirty  years  has  shown  that  none  of  the  old  standard 
American  or  European  varieties  can  be  depended  on  to  pro- 
duce a  paying  crop  anywhere  in  the  far  South.  It  is  true 
that  isolated  trees  here  and  there  have  given  some  pears,  but 
only  in  small  quantities  ;  nor  are  the  trees  sufficiently  vigor- 
ous in  our  climate.  The  Le  Conte,  Garber  and  Kieffer, 
ripening  in  succession,  are  a  perfect  success  everywhere. 

(67) 


68  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

The  Smith's  Hybrid  is  simply  a  poor  Le  Conte.  It  ripens  at 
the  same  time,  but  rots  more,  quickly  at  the  core,  and  after 
fruiting  several  years,  my  trees  were  top-budded  to  Garber, 
which  pear  forms  a  perfect  succession  to  the  Le  Conte,  and 
is  superior  in  quality  to  either  it  or  the  Kieffer.  It  resembles 
the  latter  closely  in  shape  and  size,  but  has  the  smooth  skin 
of  the  Le  Conte,  and  ripens  well  on  or  off  the  tree,  never 
rotting  at  the  core  or  suffering  from  the  bitter-rot  on  the  out- 
side, as  the  Kieffer  often  does.  However,  with  all  its  good 
qualities,  it  has  one  most  serious  fault,  and  that  is,  its  late- 
ness in  coming  into  bearing.  This  is  due,  probably,  to  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  grown  so  continuously  from  young  trees 
that  a  full  crop  cannot  now  be  expected  on  such  trees  for  ten 
years  or  more.  But  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  this 
variety  should  be  largely  grown  as  a  succession  to  Le  Conte, 
when  it  becomes  necessary  to  can  or  evaporate  our  crop.  It 
ripens  at  a  time  that  offers  a  better  market  for  pears  than  any 
period  in  the  year,  for  the  California,  Bartlett  and  Le  Conte 
are  then  gone,  the  Kieffer  still  green,  and  the  California 
varieties  on  the  market  are  far  inferior  in  quality  to  it. 
Fortunately,  we  now  have  a  way  to  bring  this  variety  into 
early  bearing — by  budding  it  on  Le  Conte,  Kieffer  or 
young  Garber,  grown  from  cuttings.  The  great  difficulty  is 
to  obtain  wood  from  bearing  trees.  The  Kieffer  is  so  well 
known  that  comment  is  unnecessary,  except  to  warn  growers 
against  allowing  it  to  overbear. 

While  in  remarks  elsewhere  on  the  decadence  of  modern 
orchards  no  reference  to  the  pear  in  the  South  was  intended, 
there  is  no  question  that  over  cropping  and  non-fertilizing 
will  quickly  reduce  the  fruit  to  a  very  small  size,  and  greatly 
weaken  the  tree.  I  omitted  to  allude  to  one  other  pear  that 
is  now  growing  in  my  former  orchard  at  Hitchcock,  which 
requires  mention  only  as  a  warning  of  its  utter  worthlessness 
for  any  purpose.  It  has  from  time  to  time  been  put  before 
the  public  as  Early  Harvest,  Jefferson  and  Lawson-Comet, 
but  is  a  fraud  under  any  name.  A  fourteen-year-old  tree  that 
cost  me  two  dollars  has  never  borne  more  than  a  dozen  pears 
at  a  time,  and  never  bloomed  until  it  was  ten  years  old, 


THE     PEAR. 


69 


though  it  is  one  of  the  most  vigorous  growers  in  the  orchard, 
and  now  over  thirty  feet  high.  It  is  the  earliest  and  most 
beautiful  of  all  pears,  ripening  about  the  first  of  June,  but  it 
rots  at  the  core  in  a  day  or  so  after  being  gathered,  if  near 
ripe,  and  in  quality  is  about  equal  to  sawdust.  Referring 
again  to  the  Garber,  and  budding  from  bearing  trees,  it 
would  not  be  advisable  to  top-bud  young  two  or  three-year- 
old  Le  Conte  trees  in  orchard,  for  the  labor  of  keeping  the 
Le  Conte  shoots  rubbed  off  below  would  be  very  considerable 
for  several  years.  It  would  be  far  better  to  bud  within  a  foot 
of  the  ground,  and  turn  the  whole  tree  into  that  pear. 

Having  discussed  the  growing  of  cuttings  fully  in  a  former 
chapter,  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  here  that  it  is  practically 
impossible  to  grow  this  pear  from  cuttings  except  in  the  fall, 
when,  if  planted  the  last  of  September  or  early  in  October, 
in  the  open  ground  if  sufficiently  moist,  or  closely  in  a  bed 
and  kept  watered,  90  per  cent,  of  it,  as  well  as  Le  Conte  and 
Kieffer,  will  root. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

The  Plum. 

UNTIL  the  introduction  of  the  Japan  varieties,  the 
South,  especially  the  lower  portion,  bordering  on  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  has  been  altogether  dependent  upon 
the  native  or  Chickasaw  varieties  for  her  plums.  I  began 
years  ago  to  test  the  most  prominent  sorts,  that  are  so  de- 
servedly popular  in  the  Middle  and  Northern  States.  While 
all  are  reasonably  good  growers  here,  they  fail  entirely  in  pro- 
ductiveness. Occasionally  a  few  fine  specimens  will  reward 
one's  labor,  but  nothing  more.  Of  the  common  sorts,  the 
Wild  Goose,  if  pollenized  with  some  other  kind  near  by,  will 
produce  good  crops,  and  the  Robinson,  Indian  Chief  and 
Golden  Beauty,  a  small  late  plum,  are  all  good  bearers  also, 
though  they  fall  far  short  of  filling  the  bill  as  first-class  mar- 
ket plums.  The  skin  of  all  is  very  thin  and  tender,  and  they 
fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  vigorous  attacks  of  the  curculio,  un- 
less well  sprayed  with  Paris  green  and  lime  water,  or  the  lat- 
ter alone,  scented  with  a  pint  to  the  barrel  of  gas  tar.  But 
with  the  introduction  of  the  Japan  varieties,  a  new  era  has 
dawned  upon  plum  culture  in  the  Gulf  States.  Not  only  are 
the  members  of  this  class  proving  early  bearers,  and  exceed- 
ingly productive  as  a  rule,  but  their  skin  is  thicker  and,  we 
hope,  less  liable  to  damage  by  the  curculio.  We  may,  there- 
fore, rest  assured  that  at  last  we  shall  have,  with  moderate 
spraying,  fine,  large,  handsome  market  plums,  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  South.  But  the  all-important  and  as  yet  un- 
settled problem  is,  Which  are  the  most  valuable  varieties  ? 
The  pictures  and  descriptions  of  all  fruits  contained  therein 
are  so  bewildering  in  their  magnificence,  and  this  class  of 
plums  particularly,  that  one  instinctively  wants  them  all. 
The  first  to  flash  across  the  sky  of  horticulture  were  the 
Abundance  and  Botan,  between  which,  if  there  is  any  real 

(7o) 


THE     PLUM.  yi 

difference,  I  have  never  been  able  to  see  it,  though  there  is 
now  a  plum  called  the  True  Sweet  Botan,  or  Berckmans,  that 
is  somewhat  different  both  in  growth  and  bearing,  and,  like 
the  Botan,  a  most  excellent  eating  fruit.  This  plum  equals 
any  of  the  Japan  race  in  quality,  though  the  various  catalogues 
are  annually  bringing  out  something  that  they  claim  is  better. 
One  enterprising  nurseryman  in  Louisiana  has  a  genuine  rab- 
bit's foot  for  getting  all  sorts  and  colors,  from  snowy  white 
to  ebony  black,  fresh  by  telegraph  from  Japan,  their  flavors 
ranging  through  such  a  delicious  chord  of  descriptive  adjec- 
tives that  one  wonders  that  the  very  angels  do  not  drop  their 
harps  and  hie  them  back  to  earth.  Let  them  alone  !  The 
old  Kelsey  is  undoubtedly  a  splendid  fruit  where  it  succeeds, 
but  it  is  subject  to  rot  in  many  places,  though  neither 
here  or  in  Southwest  Texas.  It  is  enormously  prolific  there, 
and  I  saw  it  in  perfection  at  Beeville,  at  which  place,  though 
plums  and  peaches  have  been  grown  for  many  years,  I  saw 
several  very  old  and  extensive  orchards  that  were  entirely 
exempt  from  curculio  and  worms.  It  is  plain  that  this  insect 
has  no  love  for  a  dry,  warm  climate,  as  he  also  ignores  West- 
ern Texas  generally.  But  in  point  of  production,  good  size, 
solidity  and  moderate  earliness,  the  Burbank  stands  far  ahead 
of  all  Japan  plums,  though  the  fruit  has  been  greatly  over- 
rated. The  quality  here  is  quite  poor,  unless  left  on  the  tree 
until  perfectly  mature,  when  it  is  passably  good.  The  Ha- 
tankio,  or  Kerr,  is  also  a  good  eating  plum,  but  a  large  five- 
year-old  tree  at  Hitchcock  has  borne  no  fruit,  the  blossoms 
dropping  every  year.  The  Ogon  bore  well  last  year,  but  the 
quality  is  very  poor,  as  is  that  of  the  Satsuma,  which,  like 
the  Hatankio,  is  practically  barren.  The  Red  June  or  Na- 
gate,  being  boomed  this  season,  like  the  Willard  was  last,  as 
the  best  of  all  the  Japan  plums,  has  failed  to  bear  a  plum  on 
a  large  five-year-old  tree  at  Hitchcock,  for  which  I  paid  the 
Starks  one  dollar,  nor  has  it  even  formed  blossom  buds.  The 
Willard  is  equally  worthless  here,  the  trees  actually  not  leaf- 
ing out  until  the  first  of  May.  The  new  Wickson  comes 
highly  recommended,  and  ought  to  be  valuable,  as  it  is  Mr. 
Burbank' s  pride. 


72  THE     NEW    HORTICULTURE. 

However,  while  in   the  beginning  of   this  chapter  I  ex- 
pressed great  confidence  in  the  final  success   of  the  Japan 
plums  in  the  far  South,  I  must  admit  that  the  present  season 
of  '96  has  witnessed  a  failure  throughout  the  coast  country 
of  Texas.    This  fact  is  puzzling  many  who  have  planted  freely 
and  others  who  desire  to  plant.      There  has  been  no  frost  at 
all  to   damage   the  blooms,  and   the   Robinson,  Wild  Goose, 
Indian   Chief   and  other  Chickasaw  varieties   are   all  loaded 
down,  yet  the  Japan  plums  in  the  same  orchards  have  not 
only  cast  all  or  nearly  all  their  fruit,  on  trees  of  all  ages,  from 
three  to  six  years,  but  straggled  along  for  more  than  a  month 
in  blooming,   and  to-day,   the  first  of  May,   blooms  are  still 
opening.      There   is   unquestionably   a   cause    for    this   queer 
conduct,  and  after  studying  over  it  for  a  month,  and  with  a 
full  knowledge  of  the   general  failure  of  the  Marianna  as  a 
stock   for   these   plums  elsewhere,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that 
this  freak  is  largely  due  to  a  decided  want  of   congeniality 
between  the  Japan  race  and  the  Marianna  stock  here  also. 
While    the    Marianna   has   become   immensely  popular  as  a 
stock  for  other  plums,  both  because  of  its  vigorous  growth 
and  the  fact  of  striking  so  readily  from  cuttings,  and  never 
suckering,  and  while  it  may  yet,  perhaps,  be  the  best  of  all 
stocks  at  the  North,  there  is  indubitable  evidence  to  prove 
that  the  Japan  plums  are  very  short-lived  when  worked  upon 
it  in  Texas  and  the  South,  and  that  it  will  generally  kill  a 
peach  at   the   end  of  the  first  and  always  the  second  year. 
Complaints  on  this  score  have  been  general  for  some  time, 
and  many  nurserymen  are  abandoning  its  use  altogether,  pre- 
ferring to  work  the  Japan  plums  entirely  on  the  peach,  which 
experience  has  shown  to  be  particularly  adapted  to  that  race. 

I  was  at  Hitchcock  recently,  and  saw  a  six-year-old 
Burbank  plum  tree,  one  of  the  four  oldest  on  my  former 
place,  which  had  recently  died  without  the  slightest  visible 
cause.  A  careful  examination,  after  being  dug  up,  showed 
the  roots  to  have  been  apparently  healthy,  with  not  the 
slightest  sign  of  root  tumor  or  rot,  and  its  growth  had  been 
extraordinary,,  and  yet  it  is  now  dead,  and  one  of  the  others 
is  plainly  doomed.  I  saw  the  same  results  in  1895  at 


THE     PLUM.  73 

Beeville,  in  Southwest  Texas,  and  only  last  week  in  Beau- 
mont, on  the  east,  where  two  orchards  on  Marianna,  seven 
years  old,  had  died  the  past  summer.  The  same  experience 
has  been  related  by  Mr.  J.  W.  Steubenrauch,  of  Mexia, 
Texas,  one  of  the  most  successful  orchardists  of  North  Texas, 
and  also  by  several  growers  in  Tyler,  the  greatest  fruit  center 
in  the  state,  while  similar  reports  come  from  Louisiana  and 
east  of  the  Mississippi.  It  may,  therefore,  be  set  down  as 
proved  beyond  all  doubt  that  this  stock  is  unsuited  and  un- 
congenial to  the  Japan  race  of  plums.  In  a  recent  letter, 
Mr.  Luther  Burbank  tells  me  that  it  is  also  of  doubtful  value 
in  California.  Several  nurserymen  of  East  Texas  are.  now 
propagating  the  Japan  plums  on  the  common  wild  plum  of 
this  state,  the  Prunus  Americana,  and  claim  that  it  is  well 
suited  to  them.  I  have  had  some  experience  with  that  plum, 
and  so  far  it  seems  to  dwarf  whatever  was  put  upon  it  even 
more  than  the  Myrobalan.  However,  as  there  are  a  great 
number  of  different  seedlings  of  this  species,  some  differing 
considerably  from  others,  they  may  have  one  better  suited 
than  mine.  I  have  seen  some  seedlings  in  the  woods  near 
Beaumont  that  suckered  badly,  though  others  do  not.  As  it 
has  been  only  recently  that  experience  has  shown  the  want  of 
congeniality  of  the  Marianna  and  Japan  plums,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  there  are  trees  of  the  latter  race  more  than  five  or 
six  years  old  on  the  Americana  stock,  so  it  is  entirely  un- 
settled yet  how  they  will  ultimately  succeed,  and  assertions 
of  interested  parties  must  be  taken  with  great  caution. 
Enough  money  has  been  fooled  away  on  the  oriental  plums 
worked  on  Marianna  to  make  people  go  very  slow  with  this 
new  stock.  On  firm,  well-drained  ground,  fertilized  and 
regularly  mowed,  but  not  plowed,  I  believe  the  peach  is  the 
best  stock  for  the  Japan  plums,  unless  the  Myrobalan  is  supe- 
rior. The  latter  is  almost  universally  used  in  California  and 
France,  and  is  said  to  be  especially  adapted  for  stiff  soil  and 
damp  ground,  and  is  entirely  successful  as  a  stock  in  such 
locations  in  California.  I  have  heard  no  objection  to  this 
stock,  except  that  the  Japan  plums  do  not  grow  as  fast  on  it 
as  on  Marianna.  This  is  no  objection  at  all,  if  the  trees  live 


74  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

and    are  productive.      In    fact,    a    moderate    growth    is    more 
likely  to  be  a  healthy  one. 

But,  after  all,  would  not  all  these  Japan  plums  be  likely 
to  succeed  just  as  well  on  their  own  roots  as  on  any  other 
stock?  There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  treating  them  thus 
by  grafting  on  the  Marianna  plum,  and  then  cutting  away  the 
stocks  after  the  scions  had  taken  root  at  the  lower  ends. 
Some  of  the  Japan  plums,  particularly  the  Satsuma,  will 
sometimes  grow  quite  well  from  cuttings,  and  all  would  likely 
root  if  treated  as  described  in  the  chapter  on  grafting.  It  is 
well  worth  trying,  for  naturally  vigorous  trees  like  these 
plums  would  do  best  on  their  own  roots.  But  in  the  near 
future  Mr.  Luther  Burbank  promises  us  a  far  better  stock 
than  any  we  now  have.  He  has  crossed  the  Satsuma  on  other 
varieties,  and  thinks  he  has  something  that  will  fill  the  long 
desired  want  for  a  vigorous  stock  particularly  adapted  to  the 
Japan  varieties  as  well  as  all  other  plums. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

The  Peach. 

FOR  some  unexplained  reason,  the  Persian  strain  of 
peaches,  so  successful  elsewhere  over  the  United  States, 
is  a  total  failure  in  lower  South  Texas,  and  especially 
along  the  coast.  The  trees  grow  well,  but  are  all  very  back- 
ward in  starting  off  in  spring,  and  form  but  few  fruit  buds. 
I  do  not  know  of  a  single  productive  tree  of  any  of  these 
varieties  in  this  whole  section.  A  fine,  large  Elberta,  on  Mr. 
I.  Aiken's  grounds  at  Hitchcock,  now  six  years  old,  has 
never  borne  over  a  dozen  peaches  at  a  crop,  and  has  not  that 
many  on  the  tree  the  present  season.  However,  though  we 
may  not  grow  the  Persian  varieties  successfully,  still  we  are 
not  without  kinds  that  will  afford  a  succession,  if  not  of  extra 
large  peaches,  still  most  excellent  ones  in  quality,  and  unsur- 
passed in  productiveness  and  regularity  of  bearing.  I  allude 
to  the  Waldo,  Angel,  Imperial  and  Climax,  of  the  Peen-to 
and  Honey  strains.  Those  are  all  freestones.  The  Triena  is 
a  red-fleshed  cling,  about  the  same  size  as  the  above,  and  the 
best  clingstone  of  those  strains.  While  the  catalogues  con- 
tain an  additional  list  of  a  great  number  of  these  hybrids, 
they  are  all  practically  identical  with  the  above  or  inferior  to 
them,  and  ripen  precisely  at  the  same  time.  It  is  claimed 
that  the  Jewell  is  about  a  week  earlier  than  Waldo,  but 
proved  no  earlier  with  me,  and  has  the  bad  fault  of  blooming 
several  weeks  ahead  of  the  Waldo.  The  above  are  all  of  the 
Chinese  Peen-to  and  Honey  types.  In  addition  to  them, 
recent  experiments  have  shown  that  several  Chinese  hybrids 
are  also  very  productive  in  the  Gulf  region.  The  Chinese 
Free,  Thurber  and  Family  Favorite  are  the  cream  of  this  type, 
and  will  furnish  the  best  and  largest  peaches  yet  found  that 
bear  well  this  far  South.  Though  the  season  has  been  ex- 
ceedingly dry,  these  varieties  were  heavily  loaded  with  large 

(75) 


76  THE      NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

fruit  of  most  excellent  flavor.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  coun- 
try in  the  world  where  a  peach  crop  can  be  counted  on 
with  more  certainty  than  on  the  above  varieties  here.  The 
warm  Gulf  breeze  beats  back  the  early  fall  northers,  and  our 
peach  trees  hold  their  leaves  until  late  in  fall ;  in  fact,  often 
almost  until  Christmas.  This  causes  them  to  rest  late  enough 
in  spring,  if  not  winter-pruned,  to  nearly  always  miss  the 
killing  late  frosts,  so  fatal  further  up  the  country.  It  is  true 
that  the  Waldo  and  Angel,  which  bloom  first,  sometimes  get 
caught,  but  they  have  the  remarkable  faculty  of  holding  back 
enough  buds,  with  almost  human  sagacity,  to  furnish  a  full 
crop,  even  if  the  first  blooms  are  killed.  This  peculiarity, 
with  their  good  eating  and  shipping  qualities  and  small  pits, 
makes  them  not  only  very  desirable  for  home  use,  but  should 
make  them  profitable  as  a  market  crop  when  the  interior 
peaches  are  killed.  The  so-called  Spanish  peaches,  Gal- 
veston,  Onderdonk,  Carpenter,  Florida  Crawford,  Countess 
Victoria,  and  others,  are  really  nothing  more  than  common 
seedlings  of  more  than  ordinary  merit,  but  not  profitable  for 
any  except  a  nearby  market.  They  lack  color,  nor  are  all  of 
that  list  good  bearers  here,  and  all  are  late.  I  omitted  to  say 
that  the  Dwarf  Japan  Blood  has  proved  of  no  value,  having 
been  unproductive  now  for  four  years. 

As  stated  elsewhere,  the  peach  must  have  dry  feet  and  a 
firm  soil,  both  top  and  bottom,  for  health  and  long  life  here. 
There  is  no  place  for  a  close  root-pruned  peach  orchard  like 
a  rolling,  well  drained,  virgin  prairie  sod,  with  close  mowing 
during  the  growing  season.  But  not  for  trees  set  with  long 
roots.  By  imitating  nature,  and  planting  close  root-pruned 
trees,  practically  seed,  on  ground  like  she  selects,  perhaps 
even  the  dread  yellows  will  never  appear,  and  peaches 
may  be  grown  at  the  far  North  with  good  success,  where  now 
they  either  die  of  the  above  disease  or  winter-kill  every  year. 
The  curculio  and  common  cotton-boll  worm  are  the  only 
serious  enemies  to  the  fruit  here,  and  the  best  preventive  I 
have  ever  tried  is  a  thorough  spraying  with  weak  whitewash, 
with  a  little  gas  tar  added  to  make  it  smell.  This  appeals  to 
both  sight  and  smell,  and  has  given  me  sound  fruit. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

Apricots,  Figs,  Japan  Persimmons,  and  Nuts. 

T^XPERIENCE  in  South  Texas  with  several  Florida  varie- 
H  ties  and  a  large  number  of  the  old  standard  kinds  has, 
^^^  up  to  the  present  time,  failed  to  develop  a  single  pro- 
ductive apricot.  They  all  grow  well  and  bloom  profusely, 
but  fail  to  set  their  fruit.  Recent  experiments,  however, 
with  the  old  Royal,  at  Arcadia,  lead  to  the  hope  that  it  may 
bear,  for  it  set  some  fruit  the  present  season,  which  unfortu- 
nately a  severe  wind  thrashed  off. 

FIGS. — This  popular  fruit  should  be  in  every  man's  yard 
in  abundance,  both  for  himself  and  for  his  poultry,  and, 
being  exceedingly  surface-rooted  naturally,  should  always  be 
grown  from  a  cutting  or  very  close  root-pruned  tree.  But, 
except  for  very  nearby  markets,  it  is  almost  useless  to  grow 
figs  in  quantity.  A  large  preserving  establishment  was 
started  in  New  Orleans  a  few  years  ago,  and  a  very  consider- 
able quantity  of  the  fruit  put  up,  but  experience  soon  showed 
that  the  preserves  were  of  such  an  exceedingly  sweet  and 
cloying  quality  that  very  few  could  be  eaten  at  once,  and  the 
demand  has  been  very  small.  The  plant  suspended  opera- 
tions a  year  ago,  and  is  now  idle.  The  fig  thrives  far  better 
in  a  firm,  packed,  undisturbed  soil,  like  a  back  or  chicken 
yard,  than  when  plowed  and  cultivated.  The  little  Celeste  or 
Sugar  is  much  the  most  hardy  and  popular  kind,  and  if 
trained  up  as  a  standard  will  make  a  very  large  and  hand- 
some shade  tree. 

JAPAN  PERSIMMONS. — A  few  years  ago  it  was  impossible  to 
sell  the  fruit  of  this  tree,  or  even  give  it  away.  Dr.  Pearle, 
of  Houston,  planted  quite  an  orchard  twelve  or  fifteen  years 
ago,  and  when  the  trees  came  into  bearing,  I  happened  to  visit 
the  place  in  the  fall,  and  found  a  large  lot  of  the  fruit  on 
hand,  for  which  there  was  positively  no  demand.  Since  then, 

(77) 


j$  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

however,  the  public  taste  has  been  gradually  educated  up  to 
a  moderate  demand,  and  possibly  in  a  few  years  they  will  be 
very  popular.  Some  varieties  are  much  more  hardy  than 
others.  I  had  one  sent  to  me  under  the  name  of  Hyakume 
that  was  killed  by  a  freeze  at  Hitchcock,  while  another  longer 
and  more  pointed  kind  has  never  been  hurt.  I  know  trees  of 
this  variety  in  Beaumont  that  have  borne  enormously  for 
fifteen  years,  though  I  do  not  know  the  name.  Experience 
has  shown  that  all  persimmon  trees,  as  well  as  pecans,  are 
peculiarly  adapted  to  close  root-pruning,  and  make  enormous, 
deep,  strong  roots  the  first  year.  If  set  in  early  winter  and 
well  tramped,  both  will  grow  freely,  even  from  the  tops  of 
trees  cut  just  at  or  even  a  little  above  where  the  first  or 
upper  roots  of  the  seedling  are  emitted,  and  will  make  an 
astonishing  growth  the  first  season.  For  propagating  both 
persimmons  and  pecans  on  large  trees,  winter  budding,  as 
described  elsewhere,  will  be  found  to  be  particularly  adapted, 
and  much  easier  and  more  certain  than  grafting. 

NUTS. — For  Texas  the  pecan,  of  course,  ranks  first  in  im- 
portance, and  doubtless  the  exaggerated  estimates  of  the 
value  of  a  pecan  grove  as  a  source  of  profit  have  led  quite  a 
number  of  persons  to  embark  in  this  business,  who  will  be 
disappointed.  While  this  fine  nut  generally  finds  a  market 
at  some  price,  still  the  vast  number  of  wild  bearing  trees,  the 
crops  of  which  are  free  and  gathered  by  cheap  labor,  at  a 
time  when  little  else  can  be  done,  will  always  depress  prices. 
In  some  seasons,  like  the  last,  values  have  been  so  low  in 
many  localities,  that  thousands  of  pounds  have  been  left  for 
the  hogs  to  eat  or  to  rot  on  the  ground.  The  common  seed- 
ling pecan  cannot  possibly  pay  as  an  investment,  for  even 
from  the  best  seed  inferior  and  male  or  unproductive  kinds 
spring.  But  those  who  will  plant  the  nuts  on  firm  ground, 
and  then,  when  two  years  old,  graft,  or  better  still,  winter- 
bud,  as  described  elsewhere,  using  wood  or  buds  from  full 
bearing  trees  of  the  largest  thin-shelled  varieties,  will  very 
likely  find  a  good  market  for  a  long  time.  As  to  enemies,  the 
frost  occasionally  blights  the  blossoms,  and  the  tent  caterpil- 
lar very  frequently  strips  the  leaves  from  the  trees.  But,  of 


APRICOTS,     FIGS,     JAPAN     PERSIMMONS     AND     NUTS.  79 

course,  the  enterprising  grower  could  easily  combat  the  latter 
by  spraying. 

The  English  walnut  is  another  nut  that  ought  to  succeed 
here,  but  we  have  no  trees,  as  yet,  over  five  years  old,  and 
they  have  borne  nothing  so  far.  The  chief  enemy  of  this  nut 
is  the  flat-headed  cottonwood  borer,  but  a  good  coat  of  white- 
wash on  the  trunks  every  winter  will  entirely  deter  the  moth 
from  laying  her  eggs  on  this  and  all  other  trees.  Of  course, 
only  nuts  or  close  root-pruned  trees  should  be  planted,  and 
on  firm  ground.  The  Japan  walnut,  however,  is  a  very  early 
bearer,  even  from  the  nut,  and  in  five  years  will  make  quite  a 
large  tree,  and  bear  full  crops.  The  nuts  seem  to  reproduce 
quite  true,  and  this  tree  also  has  been  proved  to  take  most 
kindly  to  root-pruning.  It  is  almost  entirely  free  from  all 
insect  pests,  will  likely  attain  a  very  large  size  ultimately, 
and  make  a  most  ornamental  shade  tree.  But  the  nuts,  being 
small  and  hard  shelled,  will  have  little  or  no  market  value. 

The  Japan  chestnut  has  so  far  failed  to  set  its  fruit  when 
grown  from  the  seed.  It  is  a  very  vigorous  tree,  but  drops 
its  blossoms  every  year  here.  The  almond  has  not  had  the 
attention  it  deserves  in  Texas,  but  full  experiments  are  being 
made,  though  its  value  is  very  doubtful  anywhere  in  the 
state,  as  it  blooms  very  early.  The  hickory  nut  and  black 
walnut  would  not  pay  for  the  nuts,  but  the  man  who  will 
plant  a  walnut  grove  from  seed,  on  firm  virgin  soil,  like  the 
squirrels  do,  if  he  has  the  ground  to  spare,  will,  in  the  end, 
have  a  most  profitable  investment  anywhere.  But  "culti- 
vate" all  nut  trees  when  old  enongh  to  bear  with  a  mowing 
machine,  for  every  farmer  knows  that  as  soon  as  pecan  trees 
are  enclosed  in  cultivated  fields  and  plowed,  they  cease  to 
bear.  They  bloom  freely,  but  the  destruction  of  their  surface 
roots  causes  them  nearly  always  to  shed. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

The  Strawberry  and  Other  Berries. 

is  by  far  the  most  profitable  early  spring  crop  for 
the  lower  Gulf  States,  and  especially  the  coast  country 
of  Texas,  where  conditions  of  climate  and  transporta- 
tion are  so  favorable,  and  where,  unlike  sections  farther 
North,  a  full  crop  can  be  grown  the  following  season  from 
summer  or  fall  planting.  In  choosing  a  location  for  straw- 
berries, always  select  the  stiffest  and  strongest  soil,  the  black, 
waxy  and  yellow  clay  land  being  ideal  ground  for  this  crop. 
Actual  experience  has  shown,  that  this  is  one  of  the  few 
plants  that  will  do  as  well  or  even  better  here,  manured  in 
the  drill,  as  presently  described.  Its  natural  tendency  is  to 
form  surface  roots,  and  they  should  by  all  means  be  drawn  or 
tempted  to  go  down.  Broadcast  fertilizing  mixes  the  manure 
both  at  the  top  and  bottom  and,  though  it  may  look  unreason- 
able, burying  the  manure  in  the  drill  -under  the  plants  will 
always  make  the  largest  fruit.  So,  instead  of  scattering  the 
manure,  whatever  it  may  be,  broadcast,  first  break  the  whole 
ground  as  deeply  as  possible,  and  harrow  thoroughly  until 
well  pulverized,  after  which  open  furrows  about  two  and  one- 
half  or  three  feet  apart  by  running  the  plow  each  way. 
Along  in  this  strew  the  fertilizer,  and  be  sure  to  put  enough. 
About  half  as  much  will  do  on  the  heavy  black  land,  though 
it  is  hard  to  err  in  putting  on  plenty  everywhere.  If  barn- 
yard manure  is  used,  and  there  is  no  better  if  enough  can  be 
liad,  fill  the  bottoms  of  the  furrows  several  inches  deep. 
Then  run  a  bull  tongue  up  and  down,  thoroughly  stirring  and 
mixing  it  all.  Next,  throw  the  earth  back  on  the  furrows 
from  each  side  by  splitting  out  the  middles,  quite  deep.  Do 
not  be  afraid  to  leave  the  ridges  well  up.  After  smoothing 
off  the  tops  to  about  a  foot  wide  with  a  rake,  cover  the  whole 
surface,  ridges  and  furrows,  quite  deeply  and  evenly  with  hay 

(80) 


THE  STRAWBERRY  AND  OTHER  BERRIES.  8l 

or  straw,  strewing  it  directly  from  the  wagon,  which  can  be 
run  down  between  the  rows.  Spread  the  mulch  thick  enough 
to  be  at  least  two  or  three  inches  deep  after  settling.  Do  this 
in  July  or  August,  so  as  to  catch  the  summer  rains  and  have 
moist  ground  for  planting  in  September  and  October.  I  ha^e 
the  present  season  made  careful  notes,  in  many  fields,  of  re- 
sults from  different  dates  of  planting,  and  find  without  excep- 
tion, that  plants  set  in  those  two  months  not  only  grow  by 
February  quite  as  large  as  the  two-year-old  ones,  but  produce 
just  as  many  and  larger  berries.  The  difference  in  size  of 
fruit  from  the  two  ages  alongside  was  in  every  instance  very 
remarkable  in  favor  of  the  fall-set  plants.  The  great  trouble 
is  that  frequently  in  the  fall  the  weather  is  so  hot  and  dry 
that  it  is  very  difficult  to  make  plants  live  when  set.  This 
comes  entirely  from  a  too  high  temperature  of  the  soil,  which 
is  entirely  obviated  by  mulching  as  directed.  Thousands  of 
plants  are  annually  sacrificed  in  August  and  September,  from 
ignorance  that  unless  set  with  a  ball  of  earth  at  that  time,  the 
earth  if  clean,  is  too  hot  for  the  plants  to  take  root.  But  if 
mulched  in  July  or  August,  and  a  good  rain  falls  to  wet  the 
earth  well,  it  will  remain  cool  and  moist  the  whole  fall. 

When  ready  to  set,  cut  all  roots  back  to  about  one  inch, 
open  a  small  hole  in  the  mulch  and  insert  the  roots,  fan- 
shape,  straight  down  at  least  fifteen  inches  apart.  Never 
spread  out  the  roots  of  any  tree  or  plant,  as  this  induces  a  super- 
ficial system.  After  setting,  pull  the  straw  or  hay  lightly  over 
the  plant,  as  a  shade,  and  go  on  to  the  next.  Treated  thus, 
and  allowed  to  grow  right  up  through  the  mulch,  a  stand  can 
always  be  secured  with  good,  strong  plants,  a  month  or  more 
in  advance  of  those  who  undertake  to  plant  on  clean,  unpro- 
tected ground.  Another  great  advantage  of  this  method  is, 
that  if  the  mulch  has  been  put  on  evenly  and  of  moderate 
thickness,  no  further  work  will  be  required  until  the  crop  is 
gone  except,  perhaps,  the  pulling  up  of  a  few  stray  weeds 
that  force  themselves  up  through  the  mulch  in  spring.  But, 
even  if  this  fall  mulching  be  not  practiced,  no  one  should 
ever  neglect  this  vitally  important  operation  at  some  time 
before  the  fruit  ripens.  Sandy,  dirty  berries  are  now  the 


82  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

rule,  and  not  the  exception,  at  several  points,  which  has  re- 
sulted in  giving  this  season's  crop  a  depreciated  value  of 
from  25  to  50  per  cent,  lower  than  it  would  have  brought  had 
mulching  been  general.  It  is  hard  to  understand  why  other- 
wise enterprising  growers  will  persist,  from  year  to  year,  in 
flooding  the  markets  with  such  fruit.  They  not  only  hurt 
themselves,  but  also  all  other  growers  who  do  mulch,  for 
when  prices  come  down  for  sandy  fruit,  the  clean  has  to  suf- 
fer likewise.  The  matted-row  system  is  another  mistake  of 
many  growers,  and  is  responsible  for  this,  as  it  is  really  im- 
possible to  properly  mulch  plants  thus  grown.  That  system 
is  admirably  adapted  to  the  North,  where  the  entire  tops  of 
the  plants  are  winter-killed,  and  when  growth  starts  in  spring 
the  blooms  come  early,  before  the  foliage  grows  too  large,  so 
as  to  shade  the  fruit  too  much,  as  it  will  here.  Strawberries 
grown  in  the  shade  will  not  ship  well,  being  not  only  soft,  but 
of  inferior  quality.  The  sun  should  be  able  to  strike  all 
around  every  plant,  and  the  berries  will  then  be  firm  and 
bright.  On  no  crop  can  be  seen  more  plainly  the  effect  of 
liberal  and  judicious  fertilizing  than  on  this.  Heavy  applica- 
tions of  cotton-seed  meal,  or  any  fertilizer  rich  in  ammonia 
alone,  will  always  produce  a  rank  growth  of  vine,  susceptible 
to  the  "rust,"  and  soft,  insipid  fruit.  Plenty  of  potash, 
and  especially  phosphoric  acid,  are  absolute  necessities  for 
firm,  high-colored,  well-flavored  berries.  For  those  who  in- 
tend to  make  this  a  business,  it  is  a  matter  of  the  first  im- 
portance to  provide  a  full  supply  of  new  plants  every  year, 
and  a  bed  of  sufficient  size,  rich  and  convenient  to  water, 
should  be  set  with  plants  about  three  feet  apart,  in  February 
or  March,  for  runners.  If  shaded  somewhat  by  a  light  frame 
and  brush  after  June,  very  little  or  no  water  at  all  will  be  re- 
quired until  August,  when  it  should  be  supplied,  if  dry,  to 
compel  the  plants  to  throw  out  new  and  strong  roots,  for  re- 
planting in  September  and  October. 

As  to  marketing,  nothing  need  be  said,  except  that  many 
growers  will  persist  every  year  in  shipping  half-ripe  fruit,  to 
the  great  depreciation  of  their  crop  later  on.  Prices  have 
now  come  down  to  -hard-pan,  the  public  is  yearly  growing 


THE  STRAWBERRY  AND  OTHER  BERRIES.  83 

more  critical  in  its  demand  for  quality  in  all  fruits,  and  it  is 
the  height  of  folly  for  berry  growers,  when  the  season  is  cool 
and  there  is  no  danger  of  the  fruit  spoiling,  to  try  to  force 
half-ripe,  pale  and  sandy  berries  on  the  market.  I  kept  close 
watch  on  the  reports  from  the  large  cities  this  season,  and 
saw  repeated  complaints  on  this  subject.  The  Florida 
growers  do  not  do  it,  and  their  fruit  has  steadily  maintained 
a  good  price  in  New  York,  and  has  been  invariably  quoted  in 
St.  Louis  and  Chicago,  the  present  season,  at  more  than 
double  the  price  of  Texas  berries.  The  strawberry  in  the 
South  is  subject  to  but  one  disease — the  "rust,"  already  al- 
luded to — a  bacterial  one,  due  to  conditions  of  extreme  and 
sudden  variations  of  temperature  and  moisture.  While  the 
Michel  has  been  most  seriously  affected  by  this  disease  every- 
where the  present  season,  the  old  reliable  Nunan  has  not 
shown  a  sign  of  it,  though  grown  amongst  and  alongside,  and 
its  plants  have  averaged  double  the  size  of  the  Michel.  As 
to  varieties,  the  latter  should  be  entirely  discarded  for  out- 
side planting,  though,  as  shown  farther  on,  it  can  be  grown 
with  great  profit  under  cover.  A  very  careful  examination  of 
many  strawberry  fields  by  Mr.  E.  W.  Kirkpatrick,  an  old 
berry  grower  of  North  Texas,  during  the  season  of  '96,  con- 
vinced him  that  the  Nunan  and  Cloud  Seedling  are  by  far 
the  best  varieties  for  South  Texas.  The  latter  is  a  pistillate, 
and  requires  every  third  row  to  be  planted  with  Nunan 
which  has  a  perfect  flower.  The  Smeltzer  is  also  an  excel- 
lent shipping  variety,  but  the  fruit  is  inferior  to  the  Nunan 
in  quality  and  color. 

And  now,  I  would  urge  all  growers  to  make  an  experiment 
with  the  Michel,  on  a  small  scale,  at  least,  under  plank  and 
oiled  cloth  covering.  While  this  is  an  extra-large,  early,  and 
really  good  eating  berry,  when  the  weather  becomes  warm 
and  dry  it  is  not  a  long-distance  shipper,  and  has  the  very 
serious  fault,  for  open  air  culture,  of  beginning  to  fruit  in  the 
fall  and  early  winter.  Ordinarily  those  crops  are  ruined  by  a 
freeze,  and  the  plants  have  had  their  work  for  nothing,  be- 
sides being  damaged  by  the  checking  of  their  sap  when  in 
motion,  which  is  probably  the  prime  cause  for  the  general 


84  THE      NEW      HORTICULTURE. 

epidemic  of  rust  on  them  this  spring.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  we  had  early  and  repeated  frosts  and  light  ice,  several 
times  last  fall,  a  very  unusual  thing  at  that  season,  and  the 
Michel  plants  were  in  full  growth.  The  question  is,  Can  we 
not  utilize  this  quality  of  early  fall  and  winter  bearing  ?  I 
would  suggest,  on  a  high  location,  that  a  bed  about  eight  feet 
wide  be  thrown  up  well  with  a  plow,  after  being  thoroughly 


STRAWBERRY  BED,   UNCOVERED. 

fertilized.  On  top  of  this  place  an  ordinary  coldframe  five 
feet  wide,  made  of  ixio  or  1 2-inch  plank  for  sides,  con- 
nected by  strips  about  two  feet  apart,  cut  rounding,  as  shown 
in  the  illustration,  to  support  the  oiled  cloth  and  shed  the 
rain.  After  stretching  common  white  cotton  cloth  of  a  good 
grade,  to  make  it  last  it  should  be  thoroughly  oiled  with  a 


STRAWBERRY  BED,   COVERED. 

paint  brush,  or  the  cloth  might  be  dipped  in  the  linseed  oil 
and  wrung  out,  and  then  stretched  to  dry  on  the  bed.  I 
have  used  such  a  covering  for  tomatoes,  and  found  it  will 
protect  from  a  freeze  much  better  than  the  ordinary  frost- 
proof cloth  sold,  or 'even  than  glass  sash.  Of  course,  the 
main  point  is  to  keep  out  a  freeze.  We  have  an  ordinary 
temperature  warm  enough  in  winter  to  perfectly  mature 


THE  STRAWBERRY  AND  OTHER  BERRIES.  85 

berries  in  the  open  air,  but  one,  or  at  most  two,  cold  spells 
every  year  spoil  the  crop.  No  other  variety  will  fruit  early 
and  out  of  season,  like  the  Michel,  which  makes  it  an  ideal 
plant  for  this  purpose.  I  know  of  no  crop  that  will  pay  like 
it,  if  treated  as  suggested,  and  I  predict  that  in  a  few  years 
every  enterprising  grower  will  have  one  or  more  beds  thus 
treated,  for  success  then  is  absolutely  certain  and  good  prices 
assured.  A  crop  thus  grown  must  of  necessity  be  limited, 
and  with  two  markets  like  Houston  and  Galveston  at  hand, 
an  over-production  of  fine,  ripe  fruit  would  be  impossible. 
But  the  balance  of  the  state  would  be  ready  to  take  any  sur- 
plus. Berries  like  the  Michel,  grown  on  rich  ground  and 
with  plenty  of  room,  and  protection  from  cold  and  beating 
rains,  would  color  up  handsomely,  and  always  bring  a  fine 
price.  The  people  who  buy  at  that  season  have  the  money, 
and  will  pay  well  for  a  first-class  article.  Of  course,  a  con- 
tingency of  dry  weather  must  be  provided  against  for  best 
results,  and  if  unable  to  afford  a  small  windmill,  a  good  hand 
force-pump,  with  ordinary  well,  will  furnish  abundant  water. 
Our  wells  are  always  full  in  winter.  It  would  be  well  to 
water  entirely  from  below,  to  prevent  wetting  the  fruit. 

When  preparing  the  bed,  lay  a  row  of  common  one-inch 
drain  tiles,  one  foot  long,  the  full  length  of  it  and  about  eight 
inches  beneath  the  surface.  Cover  the  tiles  with  an  inch  of 
shell,  gravel,  sawdust  or  hay,  in  order  to  keep  the  soil  from 
finding  its  way  between  the  joints  and  into  the  tiles.  Or,  in- 
stead of  tiles,  two  pieces  of  i  x  3  heart  pine,  nailed  together 
like  a  gutter,  and  the  edges  notched  at  intervals  of  six  inches, 
to  allow  a  free  escape  of  the  water.  This  should  be  inverted, 
and  laid  upon  a  six-inch  plank,  at  the  depth  named,  and  the 
end  next  the  well,  whether  tiles  or  plank,  connected  by  hose 
to  the  pump.  The  fruit  when  ripe  need  never  be  wet,  which 
would  greatly  improve  its  appearance  and  shipping  qualities. 
The  plants  should  be  set  not  less  than  fifteen  inches  apart 
each  way,  and  the  bed  evenly  mulched  before  putting  them 
out.  A  strawberry  bed  of  Michel  thus  treated  would  be  ab- 
solutely sure  for  a  paying  crop,  and  the  yield  from  November 
to  March  alone  would  be  something  wonderful.  The  cover- 


86  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

ing  (see  cut,  page  84),  which,  by  the  way,  should  be  nailed 
fast  on  one  side,  and  the  other  tacked  to  long  one-inch  cur- 
tain-rods, and  fixed  so  as  to  lap  and  roll  back  in  all  ordinary 
weather,  could  be  removed  the  last  of  March  and  packed 
away  for  the  next  season,  and  the  plank  likewise,  and  both 
would  answer  for  a  long  time. 

If  northern  growers  can  afford  expensive  houses,  and 
steam  heating  to  grow  cucumbers,  lettuce,  etc.,  by  the  acre, 
surely  it  will  pay  to  spend  the  small  amount  of  money  re- 
quired here  to  grow  a  much  more  valuable  product  like  the 
strawberry,  and  put  it  on  the  market  during  the  winter 
months. 

BLACKBERRIES. — Like  the  strawberry,  the  dewberry  and 
blackberry  are  perfectly  at  home  around  the  Gulf  coasts,  and 
in  fact  all  over  the  South,  though  many  varieties  of  the  latter 
are  so  subject  to  rust  that  it  pays  best  to  confine  ourselves 
entirely  to  varieties  like  the  Dallas.  The  Mayes  or  Austin 
Hybrid  dewberry  and  Early  Trinity  blackberry  are  new  and 
very  promising  varieties,  that  are  well  worthy  of  a  trial.  As 
these  berries  are  all  rank  growers,  and  sucker  very  badly  in 
our  long,  warm  summers,  it  is  all-important  to  give  plenty  of 
room  between  the  rows,  to  permit  the  free  use  of  the  plow. 
Eight  feet  between  the  rows  is  none  too  much.  As  soon  as 
the  fruit  is  gone,  the  old  canes  should  be  cut  out  at  once,  or 
by  winter  they  will  become  so  tangled  with  the  new  growth 
that  their  removal  is  very  difficult  and  troublesome.  A  good 
dressing  of  bone  meal  or  phosphate  will  greatly  improve  the 
size  of  the  berries. 

The  raspberry,  gooseberry  and  currant  find  the  far  South 
too  warm  for  their  perfect  development,  and  these  fruits  are 
of  no  value  there,  though  some  of  the  black-cap  raspberries 
are  cultivated  to  a  limited  extent  in  the  upper  portions  of 
Texas. 

I  omitted  to  note  above  that  the  strawberry  beds  should 
run  north  and  south,  to  allow  all  the  plants  to  have  at  least 
half  a  day  of  sun. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

A  Review. 

THE  preceding  chapters  are  part  of  the  original  New 
Horticulture,  published  twelve  years  ago  by  myself, 
because  no  publisher  would  bring  out  what  one  of  them, 
after  looking  over  the  manuscript,  called  "  a  mess  of  non- 
sense." When  I  penned  them  1  little  thought  I  should  live 
to  see  even  the  faintest  streak  of  dawn  that  would  usher 
in  the  happy  "Emancipation"  day  for  the  fruit-growers 
of  the  world.  Instead  of  the  easy,  delightful  and  profitable 
occupation  that  horticulture  should  be,  when  followed  in 
accordance  with  nature's  laws,  it  has  now  become,  through 
a  strange,  unaccountable  perversion  of  those  laws,  appar- 
ently from  its  very  beginning,  so  burdened  with  fallacious 
theories  and  costly  methods,  that  to  be  a  horticulturist, 
according  to  the  present  accepted  orthodox  teachings,  is 
to  be  merely  a  "  hewer  of  wood  and  drawer  of  water"  for 
the  railroads,  the  middlemen,  the  box  factories  and  the 
day-laborers.  Realizing  that  all  this  was  coming  through 
the  enormous  plantings  of  fruit  trees  by  the  cheap  and 
easy  method  of  root-pruning,  and  seeing  that  the  princi- 
ples of  the  New  Horticulture,  the  fruit-grower's  only  salva- 
tion, were  making  slow  headway  through  the  determined 
opposition  of  nearly  all  the  experiment  stations,  professors 
and  many  of  the  largest  fruit-growers  of  the  country,  about 
six  years  ago  I  moved  to  Lampasas,  to  institute  crucial  ex- 
periments in  sod  culture.  Up  to  that  time  root-pruning  and 
other  of  its  principles  were  being  rapidly  adopted  by  pro- 
gressive fruit  men,  but  the  one  horticultural  pill  that  gagged 
even  them  was  non-cultivation.  Knowing  that  this  was  the 
most  important  principle  of  them  all,  I  determined  to  so 
sugar-coat  it  by  the  exhibition  of  perfect  fruit  thus  grown  as 
to  induce  them  to  swallow  it  also,  and  at  the  same  time 

(87) 


88  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

crush  the  opposition  of  the  so-called  horticultural  scientists 
by  three  experimental  demonstrations  on  a  scale  large  enough 
to  convince  the  most  skeptical  who  were  honestly  looking  for 
the  truth.  Of  course,  I  knew  that  there  were  thousands  so 
joined  to  their  idol  of  cultivation  that  they  would  not  be  con- 
vinced, even  though  Charles  Downing  himself  should  rise 
from  the  dead  and  denounce  it.  With  this  view  I  set  out  an 
orchard  here,  and  then  cast  about  for  my  northern  experi- 
ment station  and  a  man  to  conduct  it  fairly.  I  wanted  to 
enlist  some  journal,  and  finally  selected  the  editor  of  The 
Rural  New  Yorker;  and  in  order  to  interest  him  by  the  novelty 
of  the  thing,  and  indemnify  him  if  the  venture  proved  a 
failure,  I  offered  to  give  him  outright  the  plates  and  copy- 
right of  the  New  Horticulture  and  one  thousand  copies  of  the 
book,  on  condition  that  he  set  out  one  thousand  fruit  trees 
in  crowbar  holes,  on  his  poorest  unbroken  land,  mulching 
and  fertilizing  around  each  tree  and  mowing  the  ground  in- 
stead of  cultivating  it.  He  accepted  the  offer,  though  utterly 
incredulous  of  success,  for,  when  he  received  a  model  tree,  he 
wanted  to  know  if  I  "really  expected  a  straight  stick  like 
that  to  grow."  But  he  faithfully  did  his  part,  giving  occa- 
sional reports  in  the  paper  on  the  successful  behavior  of  the 
little  "sticks."  At  this,  certain  of  the  horticultural  scribes 
and  Pharisees  began  to  hint  that  he  had  "an  axe  to  grind" 
in  the  sale  of  the  books  ;  so  he  promptly  turned  them  and  the 
New  Horticulture  over  to  The  Rural  New  Yorker.  After  they 
were  sold,  that  journal  decided  not  to  publish  another  edi- 
tion and  returned  the  plates,  etc.,  to  me.  Finding  from  con- 
tinued inquiries  that  there  is  a  growing  interest  in  the  New 
Horticulture,  and  feeling,  like  The  Rural  New  Yorker  editor, 
that  any  future  articles  I  may  write  would  look  as  if  I  also 
"had  an  axe  to  grind,"  I  offered  Farm  and  Ranch  the  sole  use 
of  the  plates  free,  so  long  as  they  keep  the  book  in  print.  They 
accepted  my  offer  in  the  interest  of  progress,  but,  never  hav- 
ing experimented,  leave  it  to  stand  strictly  on  its  merits. 

With  this  explanation,  I  will  now  return  to  the  New  York 
experimental  orchard,  planted  largely  in  apples  and  peaches, 
which  has  been  such  a  signal  success  and  excited  such  general 


A     REVIEW.  89 

interest  at  the  North,  that  a  few  weeks  ago  Mr.  E.  Van 
Alstyne,  a  prominent  fruit-grower  and  writer,  visited  it  and 
made  a  highly  favorable  report  in  The  Rural  New  Yorker  of 
January  15,  concluding  with  the  following  language:  "The 
annual  growth  of  new  wood  was  all  that  one  could  wish,  and 
it  is  good,  solid  wood,  too.  The  trees  are  strong  and  healthy 
and  will  compare  favorably  with  the  majority  of  trees  of  the 
same  age  anywhere.  I  see  no  reason  why  in  the  next  eight 
or  ten  years  this  orchard  should  not  return  an  annual  net 
income  that  will  equal  several  times  the  cost  of  land  and 
trees."  In  the  same  issue  the  editor  remarks  :  "  Those  were 
June-bred  trees,  planted  in  crowbar  holes  and  cut  back  so 
that  about  one  foot  of  stem  was  left  above  ground.  The 
roots  were  pruned  so  that  not  even  a  stub  of  a  side  root  was 
left.  We  punched  a  hole  with  a  crowbar  right  in  a  brush- 
grown  field  where  no  plowing  had  been  done  for  at  least  thirty 
years.  The  little  trees  were  put  down  into  the  holes  and  water 
and  sand  poured  in,  then  packed  down  hard  around  the  root 
with  a  stick.  These  trees  did  not  receive  the  attention  they 
should  have  had,  and  they  grew  slowly  at  first.  I  have  dug 
up  quite  a  number  of  them  to  see  what  they  were  doing,  and 
in  every  case  their  first  effort  seems  to  be  a  series  of  tap-roots 
which  dig  straight  down  into  the  ground.  I  have  traced 
them  until  I  feel  sure  they  reached  nearly  or  quite  to  the 
water  level.  Later,  after  the  tap-roots  are  well  fixed,  the 
small  feeding-roots  come  out  from  below  the  crown  of  the 
tree,  when  growth  proceeds  rapidly." 

In  a  former  issue  of  the  journal  the  editor  had  this  to  say 
about  cultivation  :  "I  have  been  criticised  more  or  less  for 
trying  what  is  called  the  Stringfellow  method  of  handling 
trees, — that  is,  close  root-pruning,  planting  in  small  holes, 
mulching  around  the  trees  and  mowing  the  grass  instead  of 
cultivation.  Many  prominent  men  warned  me  in  the  begin- 
ning against  these  methods,  but  if  I  were  now  to  publish 
their  letters  it  would  make  those  gentlemen  very  weary.  In 
view  of  the  way  my  own  trees  have  acted,  I  am  unable  to 
understand  just  why  the  scientific  men  make  such  fun  of 
these  methods.  The  fact  is,  those  gentlemen  will  soon  not 


9O  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

only  find  it  necessary  to  take  a  back  seat,  especially  on  the 
subject  of  cultivation,  but  will  actually  have  to  stand  up." 
So  much  for  the  New  York  experiment.  About  the  same 
time  it  was  started,  Mr.  W.  W.  Durham,  of  Austin,  Texas, 
agreed  also  to  plant  one  thousand  fruit  trees  under  my  direc- 
tion as  a  test  of  the  New  Horticulture  in  the  South.  The 
conditions  were  identical  with  the  former,  being  unbroken 
natural  sod,  crowbar  holes  and  close  root-pruned  trees,  mulch- 
ing each  one,  and  mowing  the  middles  several  times  during 
the  growing  season.  The  orchard  is  now  five  years  old,  and 
last  August  Mr.  Durham  wrote  me  as  follows:  "My  sod 
fruit  is  now  all  gone  except  a  few  September  peaches.  The 
Elberta,  Family  Favorite,  Sylphide,  Bequett,  Carman  and 
several  others  were  the  largest  and  highest  colored  by  far 
that  came  to  the  Austin  market.  A  German  friend,  who  has 
grown  peaches  all  his  life,  said  he  never  saw  Family  Favorite 
have  such  color  before.  The  Driscoll  Hotel  let  my  peaches 
turn  down  all  the  east  Texas  fruit,  on  account  of  fine  size, 
beautiful  color  and  good  flavor.  There  is  an  orchard  just 
across  the  Colorado  River  that  has  eight  hundred  trees  in  it, 
and  Mr.  Weaver,  the  owner,  told  me  they  did  not  bear  a 
single  peach  this  season,  due  to  the  late  February  freeze. 
That  orchard  was  thoroughly  cultivated  from  early  spring." 
Here  we  have  absolute  proof  that  the  destruction  of  the 
fibrous  surface-roots  so  weakened  the  eight  hundred  trees 
that  they  shed  all  their  blossoms  ;  to  which  cause  is  also  due 
the  well-known  "June  drop"  of  cultivated  peach  trees  all 
over  the  country,  for  who  ever  heard  of  "June  drop  "  from  a 
fence  corner  or  a  back-yard  tree  ? 

I  will  now  close  my  demonstrative  proof  of  the  superiority 
of  non-cultivation,  with  a  few  words  on  my  own  sod  orchard, 
planted  at  the  same  time,  in  the  same  way,  and  treated  just 
as  were  the  New  York  and  Austin  experiments  ;  except  that 
my  trees  were  set  in  small,  clean  circles  on  Bermuda  grass 
sod,  which  has  been  kept  well  mowed  ever  since.  From 
these  trees  I  shipped  fruit  to  the  World's  Fair  which  the 
superintendent  of  Texas  exhibits,  Mr.  Samuel  Dixon,  and 
Mr.  E.  W.  Kirkpatrick,  President  of  the  National  Associa- 


A     REVIEW.  gi 

tion  of  Nurserymen,  pronounced  to  be  the  most  beautiful 
they  ever  saw.  Such  being  the  general  good  results  of  non- 
cultivation,  before  inviting  attention  to  some  of  the  evil 
effects  of  cultivation,  no  matter  how  shallow,  which  neces- 
sarily destroys  the  surface-roots  of  trees,  let  us  consider  for 
a  few  moments  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  those  fine,  hair- 
like  little  feeding-roots  that  trees  of  all  kinds,  fruit  and  for- 
est, instinctively  push  to  the  top  of  the  ground,  taking  com- 
plete possession  if  allowed,  but  of  which  neither  fruit-growers 
nor  horticultural  writers  take  the  slightest  notice.  Cut  and 
slash  them  with  the  plow,  cultivator  or  hoe  as  we  may,  back 
again  they  come,  if  given  only  a  few  weeks'  chance,  to  the 
surface,  Nature's  kitchen,  where  she  kindly  spreads,  cooked 
by  the  action  of  the  elements,  her  choicest  food  for  the  mil- 
lions of  hungry  little  mouths  so  eager  to  partake  of  it.  Alas  ! 
the  well-meaning  but  mistaken  fruit-grower,  under  the  delu- 
sion that  he  is  thus  benefiting  his  trees,  comes  along  at 
short  intervals  with  his  infernal  machines  of  tree  torture, 
tears  the  whole  surface  to  pieces,  scattering  the  soluble  food 
for  the  next  flooding  rain  to  carry  away  to  the  greedy  rivers 
and  sea,  while  the  patient,  long-suffering  trees  at  once  go  to 
work  to  replace  the  poor  little  innocents  that  man  has  so 
ruthlessly  destroyed. 

And  here  let  me  quote  an  extract  from  the  Houston 
Chronicle  of  today,  February  8,  which  so  well  expresses  my 
own  belief  for  years  :  "  Dr.  Henry  C.  Conrad,  of  the  Botani- 
cal Division  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  after  continued 
experiments,  is  convinced  that  in  some  form  or  other  plants 
and  trees  have  all  the  senses  of  animals  except  hearing.  '  We 
have  never  been  able,'  said  Dr.  Conrad,  'to  discover  any 
way  in  which  they  are  susceptible  to  sound,  but  in  seeing, 
feeling  and  tasting  they  are  certainly  developed.  The  Sun- 
dew, a  plant  which  grows  in  the  swamps  about  Baltimore, 
probably  knows  the  sense  of  taste  to  a  greater  extent  than 
any  other.  With  a  single  exception,'  said  Dr.  Conrad, 
'they  can  recognize  light  and  the  direction  from  which  it 
comes  ;  they  feel  the  slightest  wound,  they  discriminate  in 
taste,  they  have  a  sense  of  direction,  whether  they  are 


92  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

turned  in  the  right  direction  or  not,   and  are  influenced  by 
electric  currents  passing  near  them.'  " 

Who  shall  say  that  this  is  not  all  true,  or  deny  that  trees 
are  endowed  by  nature  with  some  kind  of  conscious  intelli- 
gence and  feeling  ?  Their  actions  plainly  show  it.  The 
modest,  little  "sensitive"  plant  shrinks  at  the  touch  of  man  ; 
all  kinds  of  vines,  instinctively,  as  if  they  saw,  grow  toward 
and  stretch  their  tendrils  to  grasp  a  foreign  support ;  while 
in  the  crowded  woods  tree-tops  keep  away  from  and  leave 
room  for  each  other  with  a  kindly  consideration  that  puts  to 
shame  the  selfishness  of  man.  Is  it  incredible  that  the  great 
Entity  we  call  God,  the  "unknown  God,"  who  "is  in  all,  over 
all  and  through  all,"  of  whom  all  nature  and  the  universe  is 
the  visible  expression,  has  also  endowed  the  trees,  plants 
and  flowers  with  some  sort  of  capacity  for  pain  and  pleasure ; 
and  that,  if  our  dull  eyes  and  ears  could  but  be  opened  to  the 
mysteries  of  tree  life,  we  should  see  their  expressions  of  de- 
light over  the  opening  blooms  and  flowers  with  which  they 
decorate  themselves  in  spring,  and  the  golden  fruit  in  sum- 
mer, and  hear  their  cries  of  pain  under  the  torture  of  the 
pruning-knife,  the  cultivator  and  the  plow?  One  cannot  look 
upon  the  dead  and  dying  fruit  trees  that  abound  in  all  our 
orchards,  stretching  out  to  heaven  their  poor,  blackened 
limbs  and  yellow,  withering  leaves  in  silent  protest  against 
man's  inhumanity  to  trees,  without  feeling  that  they  have 
really  and  truly  suffered  during  the  long  years  of  such  treat- 
ment. But  a  better  day  is  dawning  for  so-called  inanimate 
nature,  and,  with  a  view  to  hasten  it,  I  will  next  point  out 
some  of  the  evil  effects  of  cultivation  which  have  forced  them- 
selves under  my  observation,  since  the  preceding  chapter  on 
that  subject  was  written,  twelve  years  ago.  But,  before  doing 
so,  I  wish  to  state  that  the  three  sod  experiments  alluded  to 
were  made  intentionally  under  the  most  trying  conditions, 
and  also  to  show  that  thousands  of  acres  of  New  England 
"  abandoned  farms,"  and  hilly  as  well  as  rocky  locations  else- 
where, in  sections  of  average  rainfall,  could  be  profitably  set  to 
fruit  trees,  especially  apples;  though,  of  course,  growth  would 
not  be  so  rapid  as  if  they  were  cultivated  a  few  years,  until 
the  trees  began  to  bear,  and  then  put  down  to  a  mowed  sod. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

Effects  of  Cultivation. 

WHILE  for  years  I  have  known  in  a  general  way  that 
sod  fruit  would  keep  longer  than  cultivated,  I  was 
greatly  surprised,  during  my  World's  Fair  shipments, 
at  a  remark  in  one  of  Mr.  Sam  Dixon's  letters,  that,  "while 
all  other  fruit  rots  quickly,  yours  looks  like  it  would  keep  for- 
ever." Knowing  that  all  of  it  was  full  ripe,  I  was  much  puz- 
zled, and  fell  to  wondering  why  my  peaches  kept  longer  than 
others,  aad  could  see  no  possible  reason  except  that  they 
had  been  grown  naturally,  upon  trees  whose  feeding  roots 
had  never  been  disturbed,  thus  enabling  them  to  so  perfect 
their  fruit,  combining  its  sugar,  acid  and  color  in  one  har- 
monious whole,  as  to  form  a  peach  immune  to  rot.  So,  last 
summer  I  determined  to  test  this  theory,  so  big  with  possi- 
bilities for  the  fruit-grower,  if  true,  and  on  the  i5th  of  last 
July,  the  first  day  of  that  awfully  hot  wave  that  swept  over  the 
country,  I  shipped  by  express  two  baskets  of  Elberta  peaches 
to  Mr.  Williams,  of  the  Practical  Fruit  Grower,  Springfield, 
Mo. ;  two  to  Mr.  Olcott,  of  American  Fruits,  Rochester, 
N.  Y. ;  two  to  the  Pacific  Fruit  World,  Los  Angeles,  CaL,  and 
one  to  Mr.  J.  Horace  McFarland,  of  Harrisburg,  Pa., — re- 
questing all  of  them  except  Mr.  McFarland  to  return  one 
basket  at  once  to  me  at  Lampasas.  The  peaches  all  went  in 
perfect  condition  and  were  pronounced  "firm,  juicy  and  deli- 
cious," "just  as  fine  as  if  picked  fresh  from  the  tree,"  Mr. 
Poland,  of  the  Pacific  Fruit  World,  declaring  "they  were 
magnificent,  fit  for  an  epicure."  The  other  three  baskets 
were  returned  without  opening,  the  one  from  California  by 
some  delay,  having  taken  sixteen  days  to  make  the  round 
trip,  but  all  the  peaches  were  still  perfectly  sound. 

Not  satisfied  with  that  performance,  I  closed  each  basket 
on  arrival  and  forwarded  it  to  Farm  and  Ranch,  Dallas,  Tex., 

(93) 


94  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  distant,  where  they  opened  up 
still  in  good  order.  All  those  peaches  were  grown  on  sod 
trees,  and  if  my  theory,  as  to  that  being  the  cause  of  their 
wonderful  carrying  qualities,  is  riot  true,  then  Lampasas  is 
the  most  remarkable  peach  country  in  the  world.  But  I  know 
it  is  true,  for  our  season  was  very  wet  and  cultivated  fruit 
rotted  just  as  badly  here  as  elsewhere.  But  while  my  peaches 
were  making  these  remarkable  trips  by  express  in  the  hottest 
weather,  cultivated  fruit  from  East  Texas  and  Georgia  was 
going  forward  in  refrigerator  cars  and  arriving  at  all  markets 
in  such  bad  condition  that  little  of  it  brought  the  charges. 
An  associated  press  dispatch  from  New  York,  July  16,  read 
as  follows:  "Georgia  peaches  in  heavy  receipt.  The  fruit 
develops  the  brown  rot  very  quickly.  Lots  of  green  stuff  also 
coming,  all  covered  with  rot."  Much  of  that  fruit  was  doubt- 
less from  the  cultivated  orchards  of  J.  H.  Hale,  in  which 
Mr.  J.  Horace  McFarland  was  interested,  and,  if  he  is  my  pub- 
lisher, I  must  tell  a  joke  on  him.  The  name  of  the  peaches 
I  sent  in  his  basket  was  not  mentioned,  so  later  I  got  the  fol- 
lowing letter  from  him:  "The  peaches,  perfect  beauties, 
came  today.  We  ate  the  ripest  and  put  the  others  in  a  cool 
room.  This  peach  is  certainly  very  beautiful  and  seems  to  be 
of  the  Elberta  shape  and  color,  but  with  much  more  refined 
flavor.  The  flesh  is  thick,  pit  small,  and  it  and  the  flesh  part 
readily.  Mrs.  McFarland  remarked  at  once  that  it  would  be 
a  pleasure  to  can  such  peaches.  What's  the  name  of  this 
peach,  please  ?  " 

But  I  do  not  blame  him  for  not  recognizing  it  as  a  true 
Elberta,  since  he  had  been  accustomed  only  to  the  shoddy 
article.  The  fact  that  the  skin  readily  parts  from  a  sod- 
grown  Elberta  is  applicable  to  all  sod-grown  peaches,  and  if 
dipped  a  few  seconds  in  boiling  water,  the  skin  will  slip  as 
readily  as  that  of  a  tomato.  But  it  will  not  part  from  a  culti- 
vated peach.  Delighted  now,  and  amazed  at  my  success  and 
its  far-reaching  consequences,  foreshadowing  complete 
emancipation  of  the  fruit-grower  from  the  grinding  refrigera- 
tor-car monopoly,  and  lessening  the  cost  of  production  so 
greatly  as  to  solve  forever  the  problem  of  profitable  market- 


EFFECTS     OF     CULTIVATION.  95 

ing  of  all  fruit  crops,  yet  at  the  same  time  fearing  that  pos- 
sibly climatic  conditions  here  may  have  had  something  to  do 
with  it,  I  determined  to  see  whether  California,  with  a  still 
drier  climate,  could  parallel  the  achievement  of  my  sod 
peaches  with  her  cultivated  ones  under  a  temperature  of  100°. 

With  this  in  view,  I  requested  our  local  fruit-dealer  to 
buy  one  or  two  crates  of  California  peaches  from  Houston, 
ordering  that  they  be  sent  direct  from  the  refrigerator  car  on 
its  arrival  there.  Accordingly,  on  August  15,  a  few  days  after 
the  return  of  my  Los  Angeles  basket,  the  two  crates  arrived, 
having  been  taken  from  the  iced  car  at  7  P.  M.,  and  delivered  to 
the  Express  Company  in  Houston  at  once,  reaching  here  the 
next  morning.  Being  notified,  I  went  down  and  saw  the 
crates  opened,  in  one  of  which  were  five  sound  peaches,  and 
seven  in  the  other,  the  balance  all  more  or  less  rotten  in  a 
single  night.  The  peaches  were  large  yellow  clings,  but  so 
bitter  from  being  picked  too  green  that  they  were  not  fit  to 
eat.  I  at  once  sent  Farm  and  Ranch  one  rotten  and  one  sound 
one,  who  will  testify  to  their  condition.  Here,  then,  was  the 
proof  that  climatic  conditions  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
shipping  qualities  of  my  peaches,  which  went  to  Los  Angeles 
and  back  by  express  in  good  order,  while  California,  with 
a  still  drier  climate,  could  not  under  our  high  temperature 
get  her  cultivated  ones  here  sound,  even  in  a  refrigerator 
car  with  no  handling,  to  say  nothing  of  a  return  trip.  Now, 
what  was  the  reason  ?  Plainly,  as  I  said  before,  either 
Lampasas  is  the  best  peach  country  in  the  world,  or  else 
cultural  conditions  did  it. 

But,  to  demonstate  still  further  that  sod  fruit  is  immune 
to  rot,  I  smeared  rotten  peaches  from  a  neighbor's  -tree  all 
over  many  of  mine — green,  half-ripe  and  full  ripe — and  in  not 
a  single  case  did  ihe  disease  "take  ;"  the  rotten  mass  simply 
drying  up,  leaving  my  fruit  as  sound  as  before.  Still  not 
satisfied,  I  inoculated  green  and  ripe  fruit ;  the  green  failed 
entirely  to  "take,"  but  the  ripe  ones  were  slowly  infected, 
requiring  eight  days  to  produce  a  rotten  spot  as  large  as  a 
pea.  Now,  what  does  all  this  mean  to  the  fruit-grower  ? 
Why,  simply  that  the  horticultural  millenium  has  dawned, 


96  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

when  fruit  can  be  grown  at  one-fourth  the  cost  of  the  old 
expensive  methods,  loaded  into  plain  ventilated  cars  and 
shipped  across  the  continent  and  back  without  a  single  case 
of  rot  !  And  here  I  will  call  attention  to  the  government 
investigation  now  being  conducted  in  California  by  Professor 
Harold  Powell,  who  has  been  vainly  endeavoring  to  locate 
the  cause  of  rot  in  oranges  during  transit  to  the  east,  the 
loss  being  estimated  at  over  half  a  million  dollars  annually, 
which  he  attributes  altogether  to  physical  cuts  or  other  dam- 
age in  picking,  though  it  would  not  have  been  one  cent  had 
the  fruit  been  grown  ©n  a  close-mowed  sod. 

This  could  easily  be  demonstrated  with  fruit  from  any 
city  lawn  ;  but  the  professors  will  not  do  it,  for  that  would 
mean  a  loss  of  their  fat  jobs  and  an  endorsement  of  the  New 
Horticulture,  though  this  professor  is  plainly  squinting  that 
way  from  the  closing  remarks  in  his  recent  report  on  the 
subject,  where  he  says:  "The  conditions  under  which  the 
fruit  is  grown,  such  as  the  character  of  the  soil,  the  age  of 
the  trees,  the  method  of  orchard  management,  undoubtedly 
exert  a  wide  influence  on  the  shipping  and  keeping  qualities 
of  the  fruit.  On  this  branch  of  the  subject  there  is  little  defi- 
nite information.  We  know  that  the  texture  and  the  quality 
of  the  fruit  are  influenced  widely  by  the  cultural  conditions, 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  susceptibility  to  decay,  the 
rapidity  of  ripening  and  other  factors  that  influence  keeping 
quality,  are  likewise  modified.  The  Bureau  is  carrying  on 
investigations  along  this  line." 

Now  Professor  Powell  was  in  or  near  Los  Angeles  at  the 
time  the  Fruit  World  of  that  city  received  my  Elbertas 
alluded  to,  when  I  also  wrote  the  editor  fully,  telling  him  all 
about  my  theory  as  to  the  immunity  of  sod-grown  fruit  to 
brown  rot  and  of  the  other  experimental  shipments  made  to 
demonstrate  its  truth,  and,  being  then  engaged  on  the  same 
subject,  it  is  very  evident  from  the  Professor's  remarks  above 
that  he  read  my  letter.  I  will  now  close  this  discussion  of 
cultivation  as  affecting  the  keeping  qualities  of  fruits  by  cit- 
ing a  remarkable  instance  of  its  effect  on  the  apple.  I  have 
a  young  bearing  Terry  Winter  tree,  a  favorite  Georgia  apple, 


EFFECTS     OF     CULTIVATION.  97 

like  all  my  other  fruit  trees,  in  Bermuda  sod,  and  wishing  to 
compare  the  keeping  qualities  of  my  fruit  with  that  of  apples 
grown  on  a  well-cultivated  Terry  Winter,  I  wrote  to  Messrs. 
Wayland  and  Reigel,  large  orchardists,  of  Pomona,  Ga.,  tell- 
ing them  of  the  experiments  I  was  carrying  on  and  request- 
ing them  to  send  me  by  express,  packed  carefully,  a  few 
Terry  apples  from  a  thoroughly  cultivated  tree.  They 
promptly  sent  me  a  small  box  with  ten  apples,  nicely 
wrapped  in  tissue  paper,  which  reached  here  on  December 
10  last,  three  of  which  were  already  rotten.  I  left  them  as 
they  were,  except  one  of  the  sound  ones  which  I  ate,  placed 
six  of  my  sod  Terry  in  the  box,  nailed  it  up  and  forwarded 
it  to  Professor  Connell,  of  Farm  and  Ranch,  with  request  to 
keep  all  until  they  rotted.  At  the  end  of  five  days  he  wrote 
me  that  all  the  other  Georgia  apples  had  rotted  and  he  had 
exposed  mine  on  a  table  in  their  hot  office  to  see  how  long 
they  would  keep.  On  February  9,  just  two  months  after,  I 
received  the  following  letter  from  Professor  Connell :  "  Dear 
Sir,  I  wish  to  report  on  the  four  Terry  apples  which  I  have 
kept  under  the  most  trying  conditions  of  a  hot  office.  All  of 
the  specimens  have  shriveled  badly  and  two  of  them  are  un- 
sound, rot  having  begun  at  the  core  and  worked  outward.  I 
have  twice  added  moist  excelsior  to  the  box  to  partially  sup- 
ply moisture,  but  I  am  satisfied  that  the  conditions  are  en- 
tirely too  trying  for  any  variety  to  withstand  the  strain, 
because  they  shrivel  up  to  nothing."  Now,  I  had  the  Professor 
make  that  test  to  see  whether  the  brown  rot  bacteria,  which 
had  destroyed  the  Georgia  Terry  in  that  room  in  five  days, 
could  do  the  same  for  my  sod  apples.  The  result  is  a  com- 
plete vindication  of  my  theory  that  the  conditions  in  the  flesh 
of  sod  fruit  are  such  as  absolutely  to  preclude  the  possibility 
of  brown  rot  development,  which  always  occurs  on  the  skin 
first,  working  inward;  for,  though  my  poor  little  apples  grad- 
ually withered  away  under  the  high,  dry,  confined  tempera- 
ture, finally  succumbing  to  decay  at  the  core,  they  resisted 
the  brown  rot  bacteria  to  the  last  and  died  with  their  armor 
whole. 

I  come  now  to  the  second  effect  of  the  destruction  of  the 


98  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

surface-feeding  roots,  which  is  to  so  weaken  the  trees  that 
they  are  unable  to  resist  the  disorganizing  action  of  a  late  spring 
freeze  and  retain  their  blossoms  or  young  fruit,  which  all  sod 
trees  easily  do.  This  was  plainly  demonstrated  in  the  case  of 
the  eight  hundred  peach  trees  alluded  to  previously  by  Mr. 
Durham,  and  the  conduct  of  all  fence-corner  and  back-yard 
fruit  trees. 

A  third  remarkable  effect  of  the  integrity  of  the  surface 
roots  is  to  improve  and  perfect  the  eating  qualities^  all 
fruit  ;  that  on  trees  in  uncultivated  ground  being  far  superior  to 
the  other,  as  is  plainly  shown  by  the  well-known  inferiority  of 
all  the  highly  cultivated  California  fruit,  so  beautiful  to  the 
eye,  yet  so  disappointing  to  the  taste.  And  yet,  with  her  rain- 
less summer,  that  state  ought  to,  and  could,  grow  fruit  of  all 
kinds  as  perfect  in  quality  as  it  is  in  appearance,  if  her  people 
would  only  open  their  eyes  to  these  plain  natural  laws  of 
orchard  management. 

A  fourth  effect  of  cultivation,  contrary  to  the  present  gen- 
eral but  erroneous  belief,  is  to  decrease  the  size  of  the  fruit, 
where  sod  trees  stand  on  good  soil,  or  a  top-dressing  of  ferti- 
lizer is  applied  equal  to  that  on  cultivated  trees.  For  years, 
as  is  well  known  in  Texas,  my  sod-pears,  though  picked  from 
trees  bearing  fifteen  to  twenty  bushels,  carried  off  first  pre- 
mium at  the  Dallas  State  Fair.  On  one  occasion  three  Kief- 
fers  were  weighed  by  Mr.  Sydney  Smith,  secretary,  that 
amounted  to  seven  and  three-quarter  pounds,  and  Le  Conte 
twenty-eight  ounces  each,  while  my  World's  Fair  peaches 
and  plums  were  among  the  largest.  In  further  proof,  Mr. 
F.  T.  Ramsey,  the  well-known  Austin  nurseryman  and  erst- 
while clean  culturist,  but  now  a  sod  man,  exhibited  at  the  1-ast 
Texas  Farmers'  Congress  Governor  Lanham  peaches  grown 
in  a  Bermuda  sod  that  measured  eleven  and  one-half  inches 
around. 

A  sixth  most  important  effect  of  sod  culture  is  that  it  en- 
ables all  fruit  trees  to  mature  their  fruit  slowly  and  naturally, 
as  well  as  hold  on  to  it  tenaciously  even  in  high  winds  and 
after  it  is  fully  ripe.  My  peaches  and  plums  always  hang,  if 
left,  a  month  or  more  from  maturity  ;  yet  it  is  well  known  that 


EFFECTS     OF     CULTIVATION.  99 

all  cultivated  stone  fruits  in  the  eastern  half  of  the  United 
States  mature  their  crops  within  a  period  of  about  ten  days, 
and  drop  very  easily  from  the  trees,  while  last  summer  the 
papers  told  us  that  California  lost  vast  sums  by  the  sudden 
and  premature  ripening  of  the  fruit  from  intense  heat.  Is 
there  any  wonder,  when  the  trees  had  been  robbed  by  deep 
and  frequent  cultivation  of  the  very  roots  which  are  so  essen- 
tial to  perfect,  natural  fruit  ?  But  not  only  does  cultivation 
thus  rush  all  fruit  to  premature  ripening,  but  it  is,  beyond  all 
doubt,  the  sole  cause  of  certain  pears  like  the  Le  Conte, 
Clapp's  Favorite  and  other  summer  pears  rotting  at  the  core. 
Before  I  put  my  Le  Conte  orchard,  near  Galveston,  to  sod, 
they  were  always  thus  affected,  but  never  after.  There  is  a 
sod  Clapp's  Favorite  tree  near  me  whose  fruit  hangs  long  and 
never  rots  at  the  core. 

I  come  now  to  the  last  and  most  remarkable  of  all  the  bad 
effects  of  the  destruction  of  the  feeding  surface  roots  of  fruit 
trees, — an  effect  never  before  suspected  by  any  observer,  nor 
even  by  myself,  until  last  summer,  and  yet  so  plain  that  it 
cannot  be  doubted.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  long  continued 
cultivation  has  deteriorated  or  degraded  all  our  fruits,  until 
many  of  them  are  utterly  unlike  their  original  types.  Some 
actually  have  changed  the  color  of  the  skin  and  flesh,  like 
the  Gonzales  plum,  and  all  are  far  inferior  in  quality  and 
texture  to  the  same  varieties  grown  continuously  on  trees 
whose  roots  have  not  been  disturbed.  For  instance,  take  the 
Ben  Davis  apple,  which,  with  the  Gonzales  plum,  seems  to 
be  exceedingly  subject  to  this  influence.  I  have  often  in  the 
past  seen  Ben  Davis  barrels  opened  here,  and  have  eaten  the 
fruit,  crisp,  juicy,  sweet — a  really  good  apple.  The  next  week, 
perhaps,  another  lot  would  be  dry,  mealy  and  tasteless.  Al- 
luding to  this  fact,  last  fall,  Mr.  F.  M.  Ramsey,  of  this  place, 
told  me  that  while  on  a  recent  visit  to  the  Boston  mountains 
in  Arkansas,  he  saw  a  Ben  Davis  orchard  on  a  small  aban- 
doned place  that  had  grown  up  in  brush  and  some  quite  large 
forest  trees,  and  that  he  had  been  greatly  surprised  to  find 
the  fruit,  of  which  the  trees  were  full,  large  and  of  excellent 
quality,  entirely  unlike  the  dry,  mushy  Ben  usually  seen.  It 


100  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

is  plain  that  the  great  diversity  of  opinion  concerning  the 
quality  of  this  apple  can  be  accounted  for  only  on  the  hypoth- 
eses of  sod  and  cultivation  ;  the  latter  producing  the  inferior 
type  of  apple  which  largely  predominates  in  the  markets,  for 
the  reason  that  a  large  majority  of  the  orchards  are  butchered 
at  least  once  or  twice  a  year,  or  oftener.  That  this  theory  is 
true,  was  also  proved  by  the  cultivated  .Terry  apples  sent  me 
from  Georgia,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made,  the  quality 
of  which  was  little  better  than  Ben  Davis,  the  flesh  being  dry, 
spongy  and  insipid,  entirely  unlike  my  sod  Terry,  which  are 
now,  more  than  two  months  later,  still  firm,  crisp  and  of  the 
highest  quality.  How  else  shall  we  account  for  so  marked  a 
difference  in  the  same  variety,  similar  instances  of  which  are 
often  mentioned  in  fruit  journals  ?  A  still  further  proof  of 
the  degradation  of  fruit  by  cultivation  came  to-day  in  Charles 
Green's  Rochester  catalogue  for  1906,  in  which  he  advertises 
a  new  type  of  Baldwin  apple  for  sale,  as  follows  : 

"At  the  rear  of  Charles  A.  Green's  (Rochester,  N.  Y.)  dwelling 
stood  a  thirty-year-old  apple  tree,  which  in  every  way  appeared  to  be 
a  Baldwin.  The  apples  were  placed  in  the  cellar,  and  the  following 
March  we  were  surprised  to  find  them  of  a  far  brighter  and  better 
color  than  Baldwin.  The  red  blush  and  streaks  were  brighter  and 
the  yellow  portions  more  like  gold  than  Baldwin.  On  eating  these 
apples,  we  found  the  quality  was  far  better  than  Baldwin.  We  can- 
not recall  a  more  tender-fleshed  or  better-flavored  apple.  In  quality 
and  beauty  it  is  far  superior  ;  in  fact,  a  better  strain  of  Baldwin.  Prof. 
L.  H.  Bailey  says  that  trees  of  certain  varieties  bear  better  fruit  than 
others,  and  that  by  grafting  from  these  peculiar  trees  we  may  greatly 
improve  well-known  kinds.  This  is  just  what  we  have  done.  CHARLES 
A.  GREEN." 

And  thereby  Mr.  Green  will  get  his  "foot  in  it  ;"  for  the 
people  who  buy  those  trees  and  cultivate  them  will  find  that 
they  have  the  same  old  Baldwin  of  to-day,  and  will  come  back  on 
him  for  selling  them  improved  Baldwins  at  forty  cents  a  tree, 
when  he  asks  only  fifteen  cents  for  the  old  style.  Both  he 
and  Prof.  Bailey  are  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  destruction 
of  the  surface-roots  by  cultivation  not  only  deteriorates  the 
quality  and  changes  the  physical  characteristics  of  many 
fruits,  but  is  the  sole  cause  of  the  so-called  "running  out" 
of  strawberries  and  potatoes,  as  well.  One  has  only  to  look 


EFFECTS     OF     CULTIVATION.  IOI 

back  at  the  many  once  valuable,  but  now  worthless  kinds,  and 
eat,  as  well  as  compare  the  color  of  fruit  from  cultivated  trees 
with  that  of  the  same  variety  long  in  sod,  to  be  convinced 
that  Mr.  Green's  Baldwin  tree  is  a  fac-simile  of  a  most  re- 
markable example  of  change  and  deterioration  in  the  case  of 
the  Gonzales  plum,  originally  a  fruit  of  highest  quality,  but 
now  so  dry  and  tasteless  that  in  spite  of  its  fine  appearance 
it  is  almost  unsalable.  The  proof  that  cultivation  has  been 
the  cause  is  beyond  doubt,  and  is  as  follows  :  Six  years  ago  I 
bought  from  Mr.  F.  T.  Ramsey,  of  Austin,  the  original  intro- 
ducer, and  an  ultra-clean  culturist,  a  Gonzales  plum  tree 
that  had  been  propagated  from  trees  long  under  cultivation. 
This,  after  root-pruning  and  planting  in  a  mowed  Bermuda 
grass  sod,  fruited  the  second  and  third  year,  but  the  quality 
was  so  poor  that  I  top-budded  it  with  the  Shiro  plum,  about 
five  feet  above  the  ground,  leaving  all  the  Gonzales  shoots 
below.  The  fourth  year  it  bore  again,  and  the  fruit  was  so 
much  better  that  I  was  greatly  surprised.  I  did  not  sus- 
pect the  cause  until  last  summer,  when  the  Gonzales  part 
of  the  tree  was  again  loaded  with  large,  beautiful  bright 
scarlet  plums,  of  such  superior  quality  that  I  regretted  greatly 
having  top-budded  it,  even  with  Shiro,  a  fine,  large  yellow 
Japan  variety,  which  was  also  loaded,  and  I  fell  to  won- 
dering what  could  be  the  cause  of  the  marked  change.  Nat- 
urally, being  a  crank  on  the  subject,  the  integrity  of  the  sur- 
face root  system  presented  itself,  and  I  set  out  to  confirm  it. 
Knowing  almost  every  fruit  tree  in  the  town,  I  went  from  one 
Gonzales  to  another,  and,  to  my  delight,  found  all  the  sod 
trees  loaded  with  bright  scarlet  plums  of  fine  quality,  like  mine, 
while  all  the  cultivated  ones  were  a  dull  maroon-red  color  and 
not  fit  to  eat.  Knowing  that  Frank  Ramsey,  who  has  often 
been  denounced  for  introducing  such  an  inferior  plum,  would 
be  pleased  with  my  discovery,  I  sent  him  some  of  my  Gon- 
zales at  once,  with  the  confirmation  of  my  theory,  and  here 
is  his  reply:  "Your  Gonzales  plums  came  to-day,  July  15, 
and  are  typical  in  size,  color  and  fine  quality  of  the  first  speci- 
mens sent  me  from  the  town  of  Gonzales,  and  I  believe, 
as  you  say,  that  they  grew  on  hard,  uncultivated  ground. 


THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

There  is  one  thing  sure,  I  have  never  seen  more  beautiful 
plums,  or  tasted  better-eating  ones  than  these  of  yours.  If 
the  sod  treatment  is  the  cause,  and  it  seems  to  be,  I  am  per- 
fectly willing  for  it  to  have  the  credit."  Those  plums  had 
hung  upon  the  tree,  full  ripe,  for  over  a  month.  So  much  for 
apples  and  plums.  As  to  peaches,  I  have  already  shown  from 
Mr.  McFarland's  letter  that  my  sod  Eiberta  was  so  superior 
to  the  cultivated  Eiberta  he  had  been  familiar  with  for  years 
that  he  did  not  recognize  it.  Another  curious  effect  of  culti- 
vation on  the  peach  is  that  it  increases  the  size  of  the  seed, 
and,  in  many  cases,  causes  them  to  split  in  the  peach, — which  I 
never  saw  in  sod  fruit.  There  is  also  a  remarkable  difference 
in  the  effect  of  shade  on  sod  fruit.  It  is  well  known  that  it 
prevents  all  cultivated  peaches  from  coloring  well  and  greatly 
increases  their  liability  to  rot ;  while  on  sod  trees,  peaches  es- 
pecially, the  fruit  in  the  densest  shade,  which  the  sun  never 
touches,  is  even  more  highly  colored  than  those  in  the  sun, 
nor  do  they  ever  show  a  sign  of  rot.  One  more  peculiarity 
of  sod  peaches,  and  I  will  then  leave  the  subject  of  cultivation. 
It  is  well  known  that  cultivated  ones  picked  too  soon,  even 
though  well  colored,  will  never  have  the  flavor  of  those 
ripened  on  the  tree.  Not  knowing  that  this  did  not  apply  to 
sod  fruit  as  well,  when  I  came  to  select  the  Eiberta  for  those 
long  trial  shipments,  I  was  greatly  worried  over  which  to  pick. 
If  I  took  them  too  hard  and  green,  I  feared  they  would  not  be 
fit  to  eat,  and  if  too  ripe,  that  they  would  rot  on  the  long 
journey.  Finally,  I  concluded  it  was  better  to  have  them  go 
in  good  order,  if  not  as  eatable  ;  so  I  selected  only  those  that 
were  well  colored  but  perfectly  hard,  and  with  a  slight  show 
of  green,  not  one  of  which  could  be  dented  by  the  hardest 
pressure  of  the  thumb.  But,  to  my  surprise  and  pleasure, 
they  all  ripened  up  so  perfectly  that  Mr.  Poland,  of  Los  An- 
geles, said  they  were  "fit  for  an  epicure;"  Mr.  McFarland, 
that  "the  flavor  was  most  refined;"  and  Mr.  Olcott,  of  Ro- 
chester, "delicious,  as  fine  as  if  picked  fresh  from  the  tree." 
With  this  most  important  discovery,  I  will  now  pass  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  blight  and  other  tree  diseases. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

"Blight  and  Other   Tree  Diseases. 

IN  the  pathology  of  human  diseases,  scientific  research  has 
developed  the  most  wonderful  discoveries.  Mysteries  that 
were  dark  and  inexplicable  are  now  made  as  clear  as  day 
by  the  germ  theory  of  disease  in  the  human  system,  every 
form  of  which  is  due  to  the  incubation  and  multiplication  of 
billions  of  those  mysterious  little  germs,  microbes,  bacilli  and 
bacteria,  good,  bad  and  indifferent,  that  swarm  in  the  air,  in  our 
bodies,  and  in  everything  on  the  earth.  With  this  knowledge, 
science  is  now  devoting  all  its  energies  to  the  discovery  of  the 
laws  and  conditions  which  regulate  and  govern  these  infini- 
tesimal creatures  in  their  propagation  and  relation  to  the 
various  diseases  of  mankind.  But,  while  the  investigators  who 
have  turned  their  attention  to  man  and  his  bacterial  friends 
and  enemies  have  made  wonderful  progress,  practically  noth- 
ing has  been  done  in  the  pathology  of  tree  diseases  beyond 
the  bare  discovery  of  the  bacteria  of  blight  by  Professor  Bur- 
rill,  many  years  ago  ;  while  nothing  of  any  practical  value  at 
all  has  been  accomplished  by  those  of  our  scientific  tree  doc- 
tors who  have  turned  their  attention  to  crown-gall,  root-knot 
and  yellows.  But,  while  the  regular  practitioners  have  ac- 
complished nothing  beyond  killing  a  lot  of  pear  orchards  with 
cultural  methods  and  scientific  cutting-out  of  blight,  disin- 
fecting their  pruning  shears  with  acids,  etc., — as  they  did  sev- 
eral years  ago  for  A.  S.  Newson,  of  Galveston  county,  at  an 
expense  to  him  of  $1,500,  with  a  dead  orchard  as  the  result 
in  one  year,  and  are  now  doing  the  same  thing  for  the  Cali- 
fornia pear  orchards,  which  are  being  destroyed  by  blight 
also, — I  believe,  though  nothing  more  than  a  sort  of  horticul- 
tural quack,  that  during  a  careful  study  of  all  those  tree  dis- 
eases for  the  last  twelve  years,  I  have  really  accomplished 
something  of  value,  especially  in  my  study  of  blight.  The 

(103) 


104  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

two  unsolved  problems  in  this  disease  are  :  First,  Where  do 
the  bacteria  of  blight  come  from, — in  the  case,  for  instance,  of 
isolated  pear  trees  far  distant  from  any  known  case  of  blight? 
I  once  saw  several  large  LeConte  up  in  the  mountains  near 
Eureka  Springs,  Ark.,  and  miles  away  from  any  other  pear 
tree,  with  large  dead  blighted  limbs  in  the  center  of  the  trees, 
caused  by  an  attack  some  years  before,  but,  from  neglect  on 
the  part  of  the  owner,  never  cut  out.  Now,  the  authorities 
all  affirm  that  such  dead  wood  is  the  nidus,  or  harbor,  for  the 
bacteria  ;  yet  there  stood  those  blackened  limbs  among  the 
other  healthy  branches,  and  not  a  sign  of  blight  that  season. 
Was  the  whole  air  filled  with  blight  germs,  in  the  first  in- 
stance? If  so,  where  did  they  go,  and  why  did  the  tree  not 
blight  again?  The  second  unsolved  problem  is,  what  are  the 
conditions  most  favorable  to  an  attack  of  blight? 

Now,  while  our  government  and  other  scientists  cannot 
tell  us  where  the  bacteria  usually  come  from,  they  are  all 
agreed  that  the  germs  are  external  to  the  tree  in  an  original 
attack,  and  do  come  from  somewhere.  Witness  their  state- 
ments that  blight  spreads,  that  the  tender  shoots  are  most 
liable  to  attack,  that  the  bacteria  enter  the  cut  ends  of  shoots, 
etc.  As  to  the  second  problem,  they  tell  us  nothing.  Now, 
twelve  years  ago,  seeing  that  the  phenomena  of  blight  were 
inexplicable  on  the  external  theory  of  an  attack  from  the  air 
exclusively,  there  was  but  one  other  possible  hypothesis,— 
which  is  that  the  bacteria  are  indigenous  to,  and  in  the  sap  of, 
every  pear  and  apple  tree  naturally,  in  limited  numbers,  and 
perhaps,  under  normal  conditions,  play  a  specific,  useful  part 
in  the  life  and  development  of  the  trees.  A  contrary  supposi- 
tion demands  a  belief  in  an  actual  creation  of  this  germ  a 
hundred  or  so  years  ago,  when  the  disease  first  appeared  in 
New  England.  But  science  denies  the  possibility  of  spon- 
taneous generation  or  an  actual  new  creation ;  consequently, 
the  germs  must  have  been  in  the  trees  and  developed  at  that 
time  as  a  result  of  certain  favorable  conditions  of  temperature, 
moisture,  light  and  electricity.  Therein  lies  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  bacterial  life. 

To  illustrate,  suppose  a  man  should  raise  a  window-sash 


BLIGHT     AND     OTHER     TREE     DISEASES.  105 

a  few  inches,  and  sit  with  his  neck,  for  instance,  exposed  to 
a  cold  current  of  air  in  winter.  Almost  certainly,  in  a  few  mo- 
ments he  would  begin  to  sneeze,  nature's  danger  signal,  and 
if  he  remained  there  a  while,  would  "take  cold,"  as  we  call 
it ;  but,  really,  the  man  would  take  nothing.  The  cold  air, 
blowing  on  a  limited  part  of  his  body,  broke  up  his  natural 
heat  equilibrium,  which  we  call  "health,"  in  the  human  sys- 
tem, thereby  furnishing  an  unexplained  condition,  highly  fa- 
vorable to  the  rapid  development  and  multiplication  of  the 
influenza  or  "cold"  germs  in  all  human  beings.  But  the  re- 
sult will  not  necessarily  be  a  "cold  "  in  the  head  or  neck  ;  for 
the  bacteria  will  develop  at  the  point  of  least  resistance  in 
the  system,  and  may  settle  on  the  lungs,  resulting  in  pneu- 
monia or  consumption,  or  they  may  attack  the  nervous  system 
in  the  form  of  neuralgia  or  rheumatism,  and  often  the  bowels. 
But,  again,  let  a  person  or  a  number  of  them,  enter  a  room 
with  a  hot  stove  fire,  closing  all  openings,  and  shortly  most 
or  all  of  them  will  also  begin  to  "take  cold."  Here,  again, 
we  find  the  natural  heat  condition,  or  equilibrium,  of  their 
bodies  broken  up  by  an  abnormal  high  temperature  and  ex- 
hausted atmosphere;  but  they  "took"  nothing,  for,  had  the 
room  been  ventilated  and  not  over-heated,  the  "cold"  bac- 
teria in  their  blood  would  have  been  unable  to  develop,  just 
as  the  brown-rot  bacteria  could  not  do  so  on  my  Terry  apples, 
but  did  on  the  Georgia  Terry,  grown  under  different  conditions. 

Admitting  the  above  facts  as  to  man,  and  reasoning  from 
analogy,  is  it  not  also  highly  probable  that  bacteria  exist 
naturally  in  the  sap  or  blood  of  plants  and  trees?  It  is  plain 
that  there  is  a  marked  similarity  between  the  diseases  of  man 
and  of  trees.  We  see  the  quick  and  fatal  work  of  cholera  dupli- 
cated in  "fire  blight"  of  the  limbs  and  leaves  of  the  apple, 
pear  and  English  walnut  of  California,  the  slow,  insidious 
methods  of  consumption  in  the  "yellows,"  while  black-knot, 
root-rot,  crown-gall  and  root-knot  give  perfect  counterparts  to 
the  various  forms  of  scrofula. 

May  we  not  go  still  further,  and  declare  that  every  known 
form  of  mildew,  rust  and  other  plant  diseases  are  naturally  in 
the  plants  themselves,  and,  under  normal  conditions,  entirely 


106  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

harmless?  That  this  is  true,  I  can  demonstrate  by  the  follow- 
ing facts,  to  which  Mr.  E.  W.  Kirkpatrick  was  an  eye  witness: 
About  ten  years  ago,  while  on  a  visit  to  me,  at  Galveston,  I 
took  him  to  Alvin  to  see  the  orchards,  and  at  one  place  the 
owner  pointed  out  what  was  a  great  puzzle  to  him.  Adjoining 
his  pear  orchard  was  about  one  acre  in  oats,  then  heading, 
and,  the  season  having  been  very  wet  and  the  land  flat,  the 
whole  of  it  was  entirely  covered  with  rust,  except  the  turn 
rows,  or  headlands,  at  opposite  sides,  both  of  which  had  also 
been  sowed  in  oats,  the  ground  having  been  burned  over  and 
the  seed  harrowed-in  on  the  unbroken,  virgin  sod.  The  puzzle 
which  the  owner  wanted  solved  was,  why  was  the  grain  on 
the  two  headlands  just  as  high  as  on  the  plowed  ground  and 
perfectly  green,  not  a  spot  of  rust  upon  it?  He  assured  us 
that  he  had  prepared  his  land  most  carefully.  Having  just 
then  solved  the  mystery  of  blight  in  my  Hitchcock  pear  or- 
chard on  the  theory  of  the  internal  existence  of  the  germs  in 
the  trees,  and  located  definitely  the  causes  and  conditions  un- 
der which  they  had  been  able  to  develop,  I  saw  instantly  the 
cause  of  the  remarkable  phenomenon  before  us.  It  was  sim- 
ply a  case  of  favoring  conditions.  The  continued  rains  had 
kept  the  roots  of  the  oats  on  the  soft  plowed  land  so  saturated 
as  either  to  drown  out  the  fine  hair-like  feeding  ones  or  else 
gorge  them  with  excessive  moisture  ;  thus  paralyzing  their 
normal  action  and  furnishing  just  the  condition  of  sap  most 
favorable  for  the  development  of  rust  bacteria.  The  firm,  un- 
broken headlands  could  not  be  thus  saturated,  and  the  germs 
remained  dormant,  under  the  law  of  unfavorable  conditions. 
I  pointed  this  out  to  the  owner  and  friend  Kirkpatrick,  both 
of  whom  saw  the  truth  of  it  at  once.  I  asked  the  owner  if  he 
had  rolled  the  ground  after  planting,  and  he  said  that  he  had 
not.  There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  millions  of  dollars 
are  annually  lost  by  rusts,  mildews  and  other  bacterial  dis- 
eases, due  entirety  to  loose,  unfirmed  seedbeds.  All  grain 
should  be  gone  over  as  often  as  possible  with  heavy  iron  or 
stone  rollers,  and  once  as  late  as  practicable  in  spring. 

But,  returning  now  to  pear,  apple  and  walnut  blight,  I  will 
give  a  short  history  of  my  pear  orchard  near  Galveston — the 


BLIGHT     AND     OTHER     TREE     DISEASES. 

one  in  which  the  first  outbreak  of  the  disease  in  South  Texas 
occurred  fourteen  years  ago.  Up  to  that  time  there  had  never 
been  a  case  of  pear  blight  within  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
of  it,  distant  about  five  miles  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
The  orchard  was  ten  years  old,  and  in  the  spring  of  1893  the 
fifteen  hundred  trees  bloomed  like  a  snow-bank  and  set  an 
enormous  crop.  I  knew  that  the  pears  should  be  thinned,  but 
the  trees  being  so  large,  and  having  matured  heavy  crops  of 
fine  fruit  before  without  thinning,  I  concluded  to  let  them 
alone.  The  ground  had  been  in  mowed  sod  for  two  years  ; 
but,  knowing  the  trees  had  hard  work  before  them,  and  ig- 
norantly  thinking  to  help  them,  the  whole  orchard  was  lightly 
plowed  in  March  and  kept  absolutely  clean  until  July.  The 
spring  and  summer  were  very  dry,  which,  with  the  enormous 
crops — many  trees  having  over  twenty  bushels — checked  all 
growth  and  sent  them  to  rest  as  completely  as  midwinter. 
Now  here  was  the  first  condition  precedent  to  blight  the  next 
year,  viz  :  suspended  growth  during  the  natural  growing  sea- 
son. The  weather  continued  quite  dry  until  November,  when 
good  rains  fell,  and,  being  in  the  nursery  business,  mainly 
growing  pear  trees  from  the  cuttings,  I  set  twenty  men  to 
work,  making  the  cuttings  from  the  early  spring  growth  and 
much  two-year  wood.  By  January,  we  had  in  over  one  million 
cuttings;  and,  the  winter  having  been  mild  and  wet,  stimulated 
by  it  and  the  heavy  pruning,  stray  blossoms  began  to  show 
here  and  there,  and  shoots  to  push  from  the  cut  ends  of  the 
limbs,  the  sap  being  in  rapid  motion. 

Well,  on  the  night  of  January  17  the  mercury  fell  to 
eighteen  degrees,  freezing  the  limbs  solid  and  completely 
checking  all  growth.  Here  was  the  second  unfailing  condition 
precedent  to  a  coming  attack  of  blight.  I  did  not  know  all 
this  then,  nor  suspect  anything,  but  three  years  ago,  under 
similar  conditions  here  where  blight  was  never  known,  I  pre- 
dicted to  many  persons,  in  March,  that  Lampasas  would  have 
a  blight  epidemic  ;  and  I  proved  a  true  prophet,  for  it  came  and 
killed  many  trees  and  is  still  with  us.  We  had  passed  through 
a  year  with  only  twelve  inches  rainfall ;  the  trees  had  rested, 
as  mine  had,  in  summer,  and  a  heavy  warm  winter  rain  set 


IO8  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

the  sap  in  motion,  followed  on  the  second  of  February  by  a 
severe  freeze.  Had  the  sap  been  dormant,  no  harm  would 
have  been  done. 

But,  to  return  to  my  orchard,  which,  instead  of  blooming 
as  usual  about  the  first  of  March,  remained  perfectly  dormant 
until  about  the  first  of  April.  Then  in  a  few  days  the  blos- 
soms seemed  to  break  all  at  once  ;  and  later,  instead  of  drop- 
ping off  as  usual,  most  of  them  hung  on  to  the  young  pears 
and  turned  black,  though,  knowing  nothing  of  blight,  I 
thought  little  of  it.  Heavy  rains  and  still,  sultry  weather 
followed  in  May,  when,  it  seemed  almost  in  a  day,  the  fruit- 
spurs  began  to  blacken  and  the  tender  tips  of  the  shoots  to 
droop,  until  every  one  of  the  fifteen  hundred  trees  showed 
more  or  less  signs  of  blight,  though  on  most  of  them  it  was 
light  and  not  a  single  tree  died.  The  ground  had  not  been 
disturbed  since  the  preceding  summer,  and  never  has  had  a 
root  cut  since. 

As  soon  as  I  realized  that  the  dreaded  fire-blight  had 
struck  my  trees,  remembering  my  experience  with  the  nitrate 
of  potash  twenty-five  years  before,  and  its  good  effect  on 
vegetable  diseases,  I  applied,  in  June,  a  heavy  top-dressing 
of  cotton-seed-hull  ashes,  containing  thirty  per  cent  pure 
potash.  Ignorantly  accepting  the  orthodox  theory  of  the 
efficacy  of  cutting  out,  and  feeling  it  my  duty  to  stamp  the 
disease  out  if  possible,  I  hired  seven  men  in  September  and 
went  over  every  tree,  cutting  out  every  sign  of  the  disease 
far  below  the  infected  parts,  and  finishing  up  the  long,  tedious 
job  in  December,  at  a  cost  of  over  five  hundred  dollars. 
Now  for  results.  The  next  spring  all  the  trees  again  blighted 
but  not  so  much  as  before,  due  doubtless  to  the  non-dis- 
turbance of  their  roots,  entire  cessation  of  pruning  and  the 
free  supply  of  potash.  In  the  meantime  I  sold  the  orchard 
to  a  near  neighbor,  E.  J.  Biering,  exacting  from  him  a 
written  promise  never  to  plow  or  cultivate  it,  and,  contrary 
to  the  malicious  report  that  I  took  advantage  of  his  igno- 
rance to  unload  it  upon  him,  before  I  would  sign  the  deed  I 
had  him  go  over  the  whole  place,  pointing  out  the  blight  and 
warning  him  that  it  might  ultimately  kill  the  trees.  But 


BLIGHT    AND     OTHER     TREE     DISEASES.  IOQ 

being  the  only  bearing  orchard  of  any  size  in  south  Texas, 
and  knowing  its  previous  immense  yields,  he  took  the  chances 
and  signed  a  written  exoneration,  which  paper  I  still  have, 
of  all  blame  on  my  part  if  the  trees  died.  E.  J.  Biering  is 
still  living  at  Hitchcock  and  will  confirm  this  statement. 
That  was  twelve  years  ago,  and  neither  plow,  cultivator  nor 
pruning-knife  have  ever  been  used  upon  that  orchard  since, 
the  blight  having  died  a  natural  death.  The  trees  are  lap- 
ping, though  twenty-five  feet  apart,  and  will  average  eighteen 
inches  diameter  of  trunk  near  the  ground,  and  were  pro- 
nounced by  Professor  Waite,  during  his  experimental  work  a 
few  miles  away  on  the  Newson  orchard,  before  mentioned, 
to  be  the  finest  and  largest  pear  trees  in  the  South.  It  was 
also  recently  inspected  by  Mr.  Stiles,  assistant  state  in- 
spector, who  told  me  that  it  was  "magnificent,  the  very 
finest  pear  orchard  he  had  ever  seen."  Now,  all  these  years 
it  has  cost  its  owner  comparatively  nothing  except  to  gather 
the  fruit,  the  grass  having  been  so  dwarfed  by  decaying 
leaves  and  shade  as  to  require  no  mowing, — and  yet  thousands 
of  pruned,  fertilized  and  cultivated  pear  trees  all  around  have 
been  killed  by  blight. 

With  this  grand,  living  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the 
principles  of  the  New  Horticulture  as  applied  to  this  disease, 
it  is  plain  that  the  theory  of  an  external  attack  of  the  bac- 
teria is  false  ;  for  it  will  not  explain  such  phenomena  as  the 
sudden  development  of  blight  on  those  fifteen  hundred  pear 
trees  with  not  a  case  of  blight  within  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  nor  the  strange  fact  that  they  are  now  all  immune, 
while  blight  exists  all  around  them.  Nor  will  it  explain  the 
fact  that  I  sent  blighted  leaves  and  twigs  at  the  time  from 
those  trees  to  E.  W.  Kirkpatrick  at  McKinney,  where  no 
blight  then  existed,  and  though  inoculated  freely  with  a  decoc- 
tion of  the  leaves  and  twigs,  not  a  single  one  of  his  pear  trees 
could  be  infected.  But  a  still  more  remarkable  fact  against 
the  external  theory  occurred  here  last  summer,  and  one  that 
I  would  not  mention  unless  I  had  an  eye-witness  like  E.  W. 
Kirkpatrick  to  prove  it.  With  the  owner's  permission,  a 
near  neighbor,  I  top-budded  in  1904  eight  limbs  of  a  quite 


110  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

large,  badly  blighting  Bismarck  apple  tree,  with  buds  from  my 
healthy  sod  Terry  and  Pearmain  trees,  with  just  the  faintest 
idea  that  shoots  thus  grown  would  not  blight.  To  my  aston- 
ishment, the  buds  all  grew  right  along  among  the  blighting 
Bismarck  limbs  the  whole  of  last  season,  making  shoots  three 
and  four  feet  high,  and  not  a  blighted  leaf  or  tip.  Mr. 
Kirkpatrick  saw  the  tree  and  will  testify  to  the  facts,  and  yet 
the  scientists  are  now  humbugging  the  California  pear-grow- 
ers with  the  vain  hope  of  curing  blight  by  cutting  out  the 
infected  limbs.  Of  course,  for  looks'  sake,  it  is  the  proper 
thing  to  do  ;  but  if  they  rely  solely  upon  that,  it  will  inevita- 
bly be  but  a  few  years  before  the  Bartlett  pear  will  be  only  a 
recollection  in  California. 

The  same  danger  threatens  their  English  walnut  trees, 
many  of  which  have  been  attacked  by  blight  also.  And  yet, 
with  irrigation  to  keep  up  a  continuous  summer  growth  the 
previous  season,  thus  satisfying  the  tree's  natural  demands 
and  inducing  them  to  remain  entirely  dormant  during  the 
winter,  and  sod  treatment  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the 
surface-roots,  there  would  not  in  a  few  years  be  a  blighted 
fruit  tree  of  any  kind  in  California.  Of  course,  all  pruning 
of  bearing  pear  trees  should  cease,  as  that  stimulates  a  move- 
ment of  the  sap  to  restore  the  equilibrium  between  the  roots 
and  tops,  especially  if  the  winter  be  mild  and  wet.  It  must 
be  especially  borne  in  mind  that  blight  results  only  from  a 
severe  freezing  in  winter  or  very  early  spring  under  the 
above  conditions,  followed  by  a  complete  stagnation  of  the 
sap  and  subsequent  fermentation,  and  never  from  the  usual 
late  frosts  or  light  freezes  when  growth  has  fully  started.  In 
such  cases  there  can  be  no  fermentation,  for  growth  is  imme- 
diately resumed  and  no  harm  done.  The  idea  of  a  connec- 
tion between  a  freeze  and  blight  has  always  prevailed  among 
fruit-growers  who  have  observed  closely,  but  has  been  scouted 
by  our  scientific  horticultural  solons,  all  of  whom  have  failed 
to  discriminate  between  the  two  kinds  of  freeze,  and  thus 
understand  why  all  were  not  followed  by  blight.  I  omitted 
saying  that  when  pear  trees  are  put  to  sod  (preferably 
Bermuda,  or  other  shallow-rooted  grass  of  short  growing 


BLIGHT     AND     OTHER     TREE     EISEASES.  Ill 

season),  a  liberal  top-dressing  of  muriate  or  sulphate  of  pot- 
ash should  be  applied,  and  annually,  for  several  years,  or 
until  the  blight  disappears,  at  least  three  hundred  pounds 
per  acre  of  the  same.  But  wherever  pear  trees  cannot  be  irri- 
gated, extra-close  mowing  in  time  of  drought,  and  fertilizing 
every  spring  to  keep  up  a  fair  summer  growth  must  be 
resorted  to,  not  forgetting  the  potash.  Of  course,  in  such 
seasons,  thinning  of  the  fruit,  necessary  more  or  less  every 
year,  should  be  much  more  severe,  though  my  former  or- 
chard has  never  been  irrigated  or  had  fruit  thinned,  but  is 
now  immune  to  blight. 

And,  now,  a  few  words  as  to  the  various  other  forms  of 
disease  which  attack  the  roots  of  fruit  trees,  such  as  crown- 
gall,  root-rot,  etc.,  all  of  which  unquestionably  have  their 
origin  in  soils  exhausted  of  potash,  deeply  stirred  and  satu- 
rated, due  to  continued  rains,  followed  by  high  temperature. 
I  have  experimented  so  thoroughly,  for  years,  that  I  know 
this  to  be  a  fact,  and  have  demonstrated  in  my  orchard  here 
again,  that  diseased  trees,  if  closely  root-pruned  and  planted 
on  firm  ground  plentifully  supplied  with  potash,  will  recover 
entirely  in  a  year  or  so.  The  scientists  all  make  the  same 
mistake  in  reference  to  these  root  diseases  that  they  do  to 
blight,  imagining  that  the  gejrms  are  external  to  the  trees  and 
in  the  soil.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  infected  soil.  I  have 
repeatedly  root-pruned  healthy  peach,  plum  and  apricot 
trees  and  set  them  directly  in  holes  from  which  diseased 
trees  were  dug,  placing  crown-galls  in  contact  with  the  stub 
roots,  and  have  never  been  able  to  infect  a  single  healthy 
tree,  when  the  holes  were  first  well  supplied  with  ashes  or 
other  form  of  potash  and  trees  top-dressed  with  it  afterward 
for  several  years. 

I  will  again  state  that  every  form  of  bacterial  disease 
attacking  grain  of  all  kinds  is  naturally  in  the  seed,  and  de- 
velops only  when  the  favoring  conditions  are  furnished,  such 
as  a  deep,  loose  soil  saturated  to  excess,  and  followed  by 
high  temperature.  In  all  the  eastern  half  of  the  United 
States  where  rains  are  abundant,  the  plow  should  be  ban- 
ished forever  from  the  small  grain  fields,  sowing  the  seed 


112  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

upon  the  firm,  unbroken  soil  and  then  thoroughly  disking  it 
in,  no  matter  how  weedy ;  for  that  places  the  vegetable  mat- 
ter just  where  nature  does,  in  abandoned  fields  and  in  the 
woods,  thus  adding  to  their  fertility  from  year  to  year.  But 
after  being  thus  disked  in,  the  ground  should  be  thoroughly 
rolled,  the  oftener  the  better.  Such  treatment  would  ban- 
ish entirely  from  all  well-drained  soils  every  form  of  rust, 
mildew  and  plant  blight,  by  withholding  the  conditions  of 
excessive  moisture  under  a  high  temperature,  which  facts 
plainly  show  are  the  ones  most  favorable  and  necessary  to 
their  incubation,  and  without  which  they  are  just  as  powerless 
to  develop  as  the  yeast  germ  is  in  dough,  placed  in  an  ice- 
box or  a  hot  stove. 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 

Priming,  Insects,  Fertilising  and  Influence  of  Scion  on  the  Stock. 

BEYOND  cutting  back,  for  several  years,  the  long  canes 
that  form  the  initial  growth  of  the  apple  and  pear,  in 
order  to  compel  them  to  broaden  out  their  heads,  no 
further  pruning  will  be  required  for  those  trees,  especially 
after  they  come  into  bearing.  But  the  almost  universal  idea 
among  advanced  fruit-growers  seems  to  be  that  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  overdo  pruning  of  the  peach.  Now,  the  fact  is, 
but  for  the  continuous  cultivation  usually  given  the  peach  or- 
chard, thus  forcing  out  an  unnatural  growth  of  long  canes, 
there  would  be  no  occasion  to  go  to  the  expense  of  pruning 
at  all.  After  setting  out  a  peach  tree,  the  top  should  be  cut 
back  to  about  one  foot  and  all  shoots  allowed  to  grow  for  a 
month  or  two,  when  the  strongest  and  straightest  should  be 
selected  and  all  the  others  cut  away.  By  fall,  such  a  tree,  if 
let  alone,  will  have  made  a  well-rounded,  bushy  head,  branch- 
ing evenly  all  around  right  from  the  ground  up.  The  peach 
is  naturally  a  bush,  not  a  tree,  and  loves  to  have  its  entire 
body  shaded,  and  will  need  no  further  pruning  until  it  comes 
fairly  well  into  bearing,  when,  in  order  to  bring  it  to  the 
proper  shape  for  the  economical  gathering  of  the  fruit,  the 
whole  head  should  be  sheared  off  level  about  six  or  seven  feet 
above  the  ground.  I  know  that  the  prevailing  idea  is  that  a 
tree  allowed  to  grow  naturally  up  to  the  third  or  fourth  year 
would  be  a  mass  of  branches,  and  overbear.  This  is  not  true, 
as  any  one  can  prove,  for,  having  abundant  wood,  the  peach 
tree  will  distribute  its  fruit-buds  evenly  all  over  the  shoots  at 
intervals  of  six  inches  or  more,  and  not  concentrate  them  con- 
tinuously, as  it  will  where  a  large  part  of  the  wood  has  been 
removed.  The  top-pruning,  advised  above,  should  be  done 
when  the  fruit  is  as  large  as  marbles  and  not  before  growth 
starts,  as  that  would  allow  the  tree  to  renew  its  head  from  its 

("3) 


114  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

strong  initial  spring  growth.  The  orchard  should  then  be  let 
alone,  mowing  occasionally  whatever  growth  comes,  or  it 
could  be  put  down  to  Bermuda  or  other  lawn  grass.  Thus 
treated,  all  peach  trees  will  broaden  out  and  cover  themselves 
with  short  fruit-spurs  a  few  inches  long,  and  somewhat  longer 
ones  on  top  ;  but  the  check  of  bearing  and  from  the  mowed 
sod  will  prevent  the  annual  growth  of  long,  sappy  canes, 
which  on  cultivated  trees  must  be  cut  back  to  prevent  over- 
bearing, as  well  as  keep  the  trees  from  growing  so  high  as  to 
compel  the  use  of  ladders  in  gathering  the  fruit.  Why  ex- 
haust the  vitality  of  the  trees,  as  well  as  incur  expense,  by 
growing  useless  wood  ?  Of  course,  after  a  season  of  exces- 
sive rains  the  next  year  thinning  of  the  fruit  will  be  neces- 
sary,— in  fact,  could  be  practiced  with  benefit  every  spring  ;  but 
it  is  surprising,  where  the  natural  equilibrium  between  the 
tops  and  roots  of  a  peach  tree  is  maintained,  what  heavy 
crops  it  will  mature  to  good  marketable  size  on  good  ground 
without  thinning  at  all. 

The  Edwards'  Elberta  seedling  in  a  neighbor's  yard  here, 
standing  on  ground  never  broken,  last  year  bore  four  meas- 
ured bushels  of  fruit,  and  from  it  I  selected  the  peaches  that 
went  to  Los  Angeles  and  back,  and  which  the  editor  of  the 
Pacific  Fruit  World  pronounced  to  be  "magnificent."  The 
accompanying  illustration  also  shows  two  rows  of  Elberta  that 
are  twenty  two  years  old  and  have  not  been  pruned,  cultivated 
or  fertilized  for  the  last  eight  years.  I  am  standing  by  the  tree 
that  grew  the  peaches  that  went  to  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  and 
back,  but,  as  the  past  summer  was  very  wet,  it  will  be  noted 
that  the  top  shoots  have  pushed  unusually  high.  However, 
whenever  the  trees  get  so  high  that  the  fruit  cannot  be  gathered 
from  the  ground,  the  tops  should  be  again  cut  back.  Those 
two  rows  ought  to  have  the  fruit  thinned  this  season,  but  the 
owner  says,  "They  have  never  laid  down  on  me  yet  and  they 
will  have  to  stand  it."  I  have  watched  those  trees  six  years 
and  never  saw  a  rotten  peach  on  any  of  them.  The  ground 
is  perfectly  bare  beneath,  all  grass  having  long  ago  been 
shaded  out  and  replaced  with  the  decaying  leaves,  under 
which,  if  the  earth  be  scratched  ever  so  little,  the  feeding 


Il6  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

roots  will  be  seen.  That  photograph  was  taken  October  14, 
and  shows  how  densely  a  peach  tree  will  cover  itself  with  foliage 
in  the  course  of  years  if  let  alone  ;  and  yet  the  very  finest 
fruit  comes  every  year  from  the  interior  of  the  trees,  where  on 
cultivated  ones  it  would  always  rot. 

I  will  now  make  a  few  remarks  on,  and  some  suggestions 
as  to  how  best  to  combat  insects  and  other  pests.  Among 
the  latter,  rabbits  and  mice  are  the  most  destructive,  especially 
where  snow  covers  the  ground  in  winter.  Undoubtedly  the 
safest  protection  would  be  wire  cloth  or  netting,  the  lower 
edge  sunk  in  the  ground  ;  but  an  infallible  protection  here 
is  a  thick  coat  of  Indurine,  or  cold-water  paint,  applied 
for  about  eighteen  inches  up  the  trunk,  scraping  away  the 
soil  and  daubing  it  well  around  the  collar.  Dissolve  two 
ounces  of  bitter  aloes  in  a  little  hot  water  and  stir  it  well 
into  the  paint,  and  for  mice  add  several  ounces  of  Paris 
green.  Five  pounds  will  make  nearly  a  gallon,  and  when 
well  applied  it  will  stick  perfectly  for  a  year  and  no  rabbit 
or  borer  will  ever  touch  the  tree.  As  to  insect  pests,  the  ex- 
periment stations  give  the  common  formulas  in  their  bulletins, 
which  are  otherwise  of  little  value,  being  mostly  old  straw 
threshed  over  for  years;  but  thus  far  no  effective  preventive 
against  the  curculio  and  plum  gouger  have  been  found,  jar- 
ring the  trees  being  about  the  best.  But  that  is  tedious,  and 
last  year  I  hit  upon  a  remedy  that  completely  protected  all 
my  fruit.  Knowing  from  experiments  with  lime  on  vegetables 
that  all  insects  have  an  aversion  to  white,  and  also  to  the 
smell  of  carbolic  acid,  I  slaked  one  peck  of  strong  rock  lime 
and  then  added  fifty  gallons  of  water,  after  which  I  mixed 
five  pounds  of  the  cold-water  paint,  adding  water  little  by 
little  and  stirring  thoroughly  all  the  while  until  the  mass  was 
a  dough,  resembling  perfectly  one  made  of  flour.  That  is 
the  only  way  to  mix  that  paint,  for  if  poured  into  water,  or 
much  water  is  poured  on  the  paint,  it  is  impossible  to  make  it 
mix.  I  then  added  more  water  to  the  paint,  stirred  well  and 
poured  into  the  barrel,  again  stirring  thoroughly.  Having  a 
bottle  of  creoleum  handy,  I  poured  about  a  gill  into  the 
barrel,  which  gave  the  wash  a  strong  smell  of  carbolic  acid, 


PRUNING,     INSECTS     AND     FERTILIZING.  117 

of  which  creoleum  is  a  compound.  The  object  of  the  paint 
was  to  make  the  lime  wash  adhere  better.  I  then  kept  close 
watch  on  the  young  peaches  and  plums  for  the  half-moon  cut 
of  the  curculio  and  the  round  puncture  of  the  gouger,  which 
usually  begin  their  work  when  the  fruit  is  about  as  big  as  a 
large  green  pea,  never  before  that.  Finally,  seeing  what 
looked  like  a  gouger's  mark,  I  strained  my  wash,  stirring  well 
through  a  thin  cheese-cloth,  and  sprayed  all  my  peach  and 
plum  trees,  aiming  to  get  it  on  the  fruit  especially.  I  could 
smell  the  creoleum  (carbolic  acid  would  doubtless  have  done 
as  well)  very  strong,  and  the  young  peaches  and  plums  showed 
the  white  plainly.  Of  course  this  treatment  was  a  bluff  en- 
tirely, not  being  poisonous,  but  the  appeal  to  the  eye  and 
nose  was  most  effective,  for  a  daily  examination  showed  no 
punctures  of  any  kind  ;  but  when  the  fruit  was  about  the  size 
of  a  large  marble  or  small  hickory-nut,  I  sprayed  a  second 
time.  Though  we  had  several  rains,  the  wash  adhered  well, 
some  little  showing  on  the  apricots  when  ripe,  though  not  on 
any  of  the  later  fruit.  That  was  all  I  did,  and,  though  all 
my  neighbors  had  their  fruit  badly  damaged,  I  never  found 
a  wormy  peach  or  plum.  Possibly  a  white  wash  with  more 
acid  might  have  been  effective  with  one  application.  This 
season  I  will  conduct  more  careful  experiments,  and  hope  all 
fruit-growers  will  do  the  same.  The  same  treatment  applied 
while  apple  trees  are  in  blossom  should  be  equally  effective 
against  the  codling-moth. 

As  to  fertilizers  for  the  orchard,  some  good  brand  should 
be  used  freely  the  first  year  it  is  put  to  grass,  unless  the 
ground  is  naturally  rich,  for  all  plowed  and  cultivated  trees 
are  without  any  true  surface-root  system.  Of  course,  the  grass 
will  quickly  fill  the  upper  unoccupied  layer  of  the  soil,  thus 
robbing  the  tree  roots  below,  the  first  season.  That  is  the 
trying  time  on  all  old  or  young  cultivated  orchards  put  to  sod, 
until  the  trees  take  full  possession  of  the  entire  surface  with 
their  fine  hair  roots,  as  all  forest  trees  do.  If  a  serious 
drought  occurs  at  that  time,  by  all  means  thin  the  fruit  se- 
verely, especially  on  trees  that  were  planted  with  long  roots. 
In  such  cases,  those  that  were  close  root-pruned  when  set 


Il8  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

will  show  a  vast  superiority  in  resisting  drought.  In  fact, 
there  was  a  time  when  I  hesitated  to  advise  the  putting  of 
trees  planted  with  long  roots,  spread  out  in  large  holes,  down 
to  grass,  but  I  have  seen  several  orchards  thus  treated  and 
well  fertilized  that  are  doing  exceedingly  well.  Anyhow,  it  is 
better  that  than  have  the  trees  die  in  eight  or  ten  years,  as  all 
thoroughly  pruned,  plowed  and  cultivated  ones  do  all  over  the 
southern  half  of  the  United  States.  In  higher  latitudes,  with 
short  and  cooler  summers,  such  treatment  is  by  no  means  as 
injurious  to  the  life  of  the  trees,  but  does  everywhere  greatly 
deteriorate  the  quality  of  the  fruit  and  render  it  much  more 
liable  to  rot. 

INFLUENCE     OF     SCION     ON     THE     STOCK. 

I  will  now  close  this  chapter  with  a  few  remarks  on  the 
reciprocal  influence  of  the  stock  and  scion  as  affecting  the 
longevity  of  fruit  trees,  especially  the  peach  and  apple.  The 
general  opinion  among  fruit-growers  is  that  grafted  and 
budded  trees  are  shorter-lived  than  seedlings.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly true,  and  due  to  the  fact  that  every  seedling  prefers 
its  own  wood  to  that  of  another,  especially  a  peach.  This  is 
plainly  shown  where  a  shoot  from  the  stock  is  allowed  to 
grow,  for  it  will  not  only  rob  and  check  the  growth  of  the 
scion,  but  generally  in  a  few  years  actually  kills  it.  While 
that  is  well  known,  the  opposite  of  this,  though  true,  is  not 
well  known,  which  is  that  if  the  scion  or  tree  be  planted  deep 
enough  to  allow  it  to  strike  roots  it  will  in  a  few  years  estab- 
lish itself  entirely  on  them  and  ultimately  kill  the  stock  with 
all  its  original  deeper  roots.  Of  course,  that  will  leave  the 
tree  merely  a  shallow  surface  system,  within  easy  reach  of 
the  plow  and  cultivator,  resulting  in  a  gradual  weakening 
of  the  tree,  until  finally  during  a  severe  drought,  and  when 
loaded  with  fruit,  it  fails  and  dies.  That  is  undoubtedly  the 
cause  of  the  early  death  of  thousands  of  peach  and  apple 
trees  when  they  should  be  in  their  prime.  The  lesson  of  this 
is  that  all  budding  should  be  done  at  least  eight  or  ten  inches 
above  ground,  to  allow  the  point  of  union  to  remain  above  the 


INFLUENCE     OF     SCION     ON    THE     STOCK.  1 19 

surface  after  planting.  In  the  case  of  apples,  the  method 
known  as  "whole  root"  stocks  is  consequently  the  worst 
possible  form  for  a  long-lived  tree.  By  using  short  cuts  and 
setting  the  root  grafts  deep,  the  young  tree  will  establish  it- 
self on  its  own  roots  the  first  season  as  well  as  from  the  piece 
of  root,  which  must  be  cut  entirely  away,  also  all  the 
lateral  ones,  when  the  young  tree  is  planted  in  the  orchard. 
This  will  give  a  clean,  close  root-pruned  apple,  free  from  all 
subsequent  suckering.  When  varieties  are  known  to  be  weak 
growers,  they  should  be  propagated  entirely  by  high  budding 
on  strong  stocks  as  described  above.  All  "whole  root" 
grafted  apple  trees  should  be  root-pruned  as  closely  as  pos- 
sible, cutting  back  to  the  body,  and  planted  deep  to  induce 
the  scion  or  tree  to  strike  its  own  roots  as  low  as  possible. 

Since  writing  this  chapter,  I  noticed  today,  April  2,  that 
the  curculio  are  attacking  my  plums,  which  have  just  shed 
their  blossoms  and  are  very  small.  Last  year  they  appeared 
later,  and  it  would  seem  to  be  the  safer  plan  to  spray  plums 
just  before  the  blossoms  drop.  Peaches  have  not  been 
touched. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

Tree  breeding  and  Origination  of  New  Fruits. 

IN  discussing  this  most  interesting  and  important  phase  of 
horticulture,  I  propose  to  do  it  along  natural  lines  en- 
tirely, leaving  the  field  of  plant  jugglery  and  intentional 
hybridizing  to  Mr.  Burbank,  who  has  proved  himself  an 
adept  in  the  business.  However,  it  is  much  to  be  regretted 
that  his  successes  have  been  confined  almost  exclusively  to 
the  least  important  of  the  tree  fruits,  the  plum,  nor  has  he 
even  in  that  line  yet  produced  an  all-round  kind  equal  to 
many  of  the  old  European  varieties,  all  natural  seedlings,  or 
to  the  Botan  and  Burbank,  both  imported  natural  Japanese 
seedlings,  also  the  latter  having  been  named  by  Professor 
Van  Deman  in  honor  of  Mr.  Burbank.  In  fact,  while  appar- 
ently well  adapted  to  the  dry  climate  of  California,  nearly  if 
not  all  of  Mr.  Burbank's  plum  creations  have  proved  a  dis- 
tinct disappointment  in  the  eastern  half  of  the  United  States, 
and  most  of  them  a  downright  failure.  I  have  fruited  a  large 
number  myself  and  seen,  as  well  as  eaten,  others ;  but  for 
beauty,  health,  vigor,  productiveness  and  quality  when  grown 
on  sod,  I  have  found  none  of  them  nearly  equal  to  the  old 
Burbank  and  Botan.  In  quality,  Botan,  or  Abundance  as  it 
is  often  called,  has  long  been  considered  the  Japanese  plum 
"  par  excellence,"  cultivation  seemingly  having  little  injurious 
effect,  but  it  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the  cul- 
tivated Burbank  is  now  a  plum  of  inferior  quality.  Having 
planted  two  nursery-grown  trees  here  in  my  sod  orchard  six 
years  ago,  I  was  so  disappointed  the  second  year  that  I  top- 
budded  one  with  several  kinds  of  apricots,  but  now,  like  the 
Gonzales,  the  fruit  on  the  other  tree  has  been  so  improved 
in  quality  by  the  preservation  of  its  surface  roots  that  I  am 
sorry  for  the  change.  But  while  Mr.  Burbank  has  had  a 
large  measure  of  success  with  the  plum,  it  is  a  remarkable 

(120) 


BREEDING     AND     ORIGINATION     OF     NEW     FRUITS.  121 

and  perplexing  fact  that,  so  far,  he  has  been  entirely  baffled 
in  all  his  efforts  to  produce  an  apple,  peach,  pear  or  apricot 
that  would  compare  with  the  hundreds  of  old  standard  varie- 
ties of  those  fruits,  all  chance  seedlings,  which  Nature  in  her 
playful,  kindly  moods  scattered  here  and  there  all  over  the 
country,  in  old  fields,  fence-corners,  back  yards  and  other 
out-of-the-way  places,  apparently  in  a  spirit  of  fun,  to  chal- 
lenge our  admiration,  tickle  our  palates  and  yet  mock  all  our 
efforts  to  equal  them. 

Wipe  from  our  catalogues  all  Nature's  apples,  and  what 
have  we  left?  Only  Peter  Gideon's  "Wealthy,"  grown  by 
him,  but  yet  a  natural  seedling.  Next  cut  out  her  peaches, 
and  that  industry  would  so  completely  disappear  that  even 
a  single  "cobbler"  would  be  an  impossibility.  In  pears  we 
would  fare  just  as  badly,  while  if  any  hybridizer  ever  grew 
an  apricot  of  any  value  I  never  heard  of  it.  But  having  be- 
come accustomed  to  these  most  astonishing  and  inexplicable 
facts,  we  cease  to  wonder,  and  yet  when  we  stop  to  think  of 
the  amazing  strides  of  recent  years  in  all  the  other  arts  and 
sciences,  the  wonderful  discoveries  in  light,  sound,  elec- 
tricity, medicine,  machinery,  printing  and  a  hundred  other 
things,  the  horticulturist  must  hang  his  head  in  shame,  for 
even  the  achievements  of  a  Burbank,  in  practical  value,  sink 
into  utter  insignificance  beside  them.  Wipe  out  all  that  he 
and  the  many  other  meritorious,  though  less  known  workers 
in  the  field  of  scientific  experimental  hybridization  have  done, 
and  it  would  not  create  a  ripple  of  excitement  in  the  horticul- 
tural world,  so  lavishly  has  Nature  showered  upon  us  from 
her  hidden  store  the  beautiful  and  delicious  fruits  that  now 
fill  the  pages  of  our  catalogues  to  repletion. 

But,  while  others  may  not  have  worried  in  the  effort  to 
find  out  just  how  Nature  worked  these  fruit  miracles  in  the 
past,  and  is  still  working  them  like  a  juggler  right  before  our 
eyes,  and  yet  we  fail  to  "catch  on,"  it  has  worried  me  be- 
yond measure  to  see  her  stamp  her  seal  of  superiority  upon 
some  old  chance  seedling  that  happened  to  escape  notice, 
and  lo  !  a  Baldwin,  Spy  or  Jonathan  apple,  or  an  Elberta 
peach  springs  up  to  astonish  the  world  by  its  excellence, 


122  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

while  a  Burbank  will  fruit  ten  thousand  trees  or  more  and 
find  not  one  worth  preserving.  But  somehow  I  have  always 
had  faith  that  Nature  would  some  day  take  me  into  her  con- 
fidence and  impart  this  secret,  as  she  has  the  other  great 
truths  of  the  New  Horticulture. 

Now  I  believe  she  has  rewarded  my  patience,  and  only 
a  few  days  ago,  and  this  is  how  it  happened.  A  gentle- 
man from  the  adjoining  county  of  McCullough  called  to  see 
my  sod  orchard,  and,  noticing  seven  kinds  of  apricots  grow- 
ing on  the  same  tree,  began  to  tell  me  about  a  wonderful 
apricot  near  the  town  of  Brady,  where  he  lived,  of  which  the 
history  is  as  follows  :  Seventeen  years  ago  a  neighbor  no- 
ticed a  little  seedling  with  only  three  leaves,  standing  on  the 
bare  ground  near  the  front  door,  and,  thinking  it  was  some 
kind  of  a  fruit  tree  and  would  be  tramped  to  death,  he  picked 
up  a  small  stick,  pushed  it  down  carefully  under  the  little 
waif  and  carried  it,  dirt  and  all,  around  to  the  side  of  the 
house,  setting  it  again  in  the  hard,  unbroken  virgin  soil. 
The  baby  tree,  appreciating  the  kindness,  grew  off  rapidly  ; 
and  now,  with  not  a  single  root  ever  cut,  no  fertilizing,  prun- 
ing or  thinning  of  the  fruit,  that  tree  has  a  spread  of  thirty- 
five  feet,  is  thirty  feet  high,  practically  a  forest  tree,  bears 
more  or  less  every  year  and  generally  full,  as  much  as  fifteen 
bushels  having  been  taken  from  it  one  year.  The  fruit  is 
large  and  beautiful,  averaging  six  inches  in  circumference 
and  many  reaching  eight  inches,  while  the  quality  is  excel- 
lent. This  was  his  description  after  knowing  the  tree  for 
years,  and  he  further  told  me  that  cuttings  had  been  given  to 
Mr.  Ramsey,  of  Austin,  and  other  nurserymen  for  propaga- 
tion under  the  name  of  the  Sheridan  apricot.  Of  course,  I 
listened  to  all  this  with  intense  interest,  and  when  he  got 
through,  by  some  sort  of  mental  suggestion  or  what  not,  I 
seemed  to  hear  the  words,  "  That's  the  way  she  does  it," 
and  the  secret  of  Nature's  skill  flashed  upon  my  mind  in  an 
instant.  Now  it  may  be  all  a  fallacy,  but  the  more  I  think  of 
it,  the  more  certain  it  appears  that  the  hidden  puzzle  of  how 
Nature  grows  her  fine  fruits  has  been  solved. 

Of  course,    the  scientific    hybridizer  will  pooh-pooh,   for 


BREEDING     AND     ORIGINATION     OF     NEW     FRUITS.  123 

the  process  is  too  easy  and  simple  and  will  largely  eliminate 
him.  All  that  is  necessary  will  be  to  furnish  the  exact  con- 
ditions under  which  Nature  grew  that  apricot  tree,  practi- 
cally the  same  under  which  all  chance  fruit  seedlings  have 
been  grown;  viz.,  first,  a  firm,  compact  seed-bed,  breaking 
only  ground  enough  to  plant  the  seed,  if  virgin  soil  all  the 
better.  Second,  absolute  preservation  of  the  entire  root  sys- 
tem of  the  tree,  and  possibly  of  the  tops  also,  thus  maintain- 
ing the  natural  equilibrium  between  the  two.  Liberal  ferti- 
lizing and  water  in  severe  droughts  would  likely  aid  by  giving 
the  seedling  a  chance  to  do  its  best.  As  to  seed,  Nature  has 
no  choice,  but  must  take  what  man  or  the  birds  cast  aside, 
or  what  drops  from  the  trees,  all  of  which  have  been  de- 
graded by  cultivation  and  the  influence  of  inferior  stocks,  as 
outlined  by  Charles  Downing  in  the  following  extract  from 
his  great  work  : 

"  But  there  is  still  another  reason  for  this  habit,  so  perplexing  to 
the  novice,  who,  having  tasted  a  luscious  fruit,  plants,  watches,  and 
rears  its  seedling,  to  find  it,  perhaps,  wholly  different  in  most  re- 
spects. This  is  the  influence  of  grafting.  Among  the  great  number 
of  seedling  fruits  produced  in  the  United  States,  there  is  found  occa- 
sionally a  variety,  perhaps  a  plum  or  a  peach,  which  will  nearly 
always  reproduce  itself  from  seed.  From  some  fortunate  circum- 
stances in  its  origin,  unknown  to  us,  this  sort,  in  becoming  improved, 
still  retains  strongly  this  habit  of  the  natural  or  wild  form,  and  the 
seeds  produce  the  same.  We  can  call  to  mind  several  examples  of 
this  :  fine  fruit  trees  whose  seeds  have  established  the  reputation  in 
the  neighborhood  of  fidelity  to  the  sort.  But  when  a  graft  is  taken 
from  one  of  these  trees,  and  placed  upon  another  stock,  this  grafted 
tree  is  found  to  lose  its  singular  power  of  producing  the  same  by 
seed.  The  stock  exercises  some  as  yet  unexplained  power  in  dissolv- 
ing the  strong  natural  habit  of  the  variety,  and  becomes,  like  its  fel- 
lows, subject  to  the  laws  of  its  artificial  life." 

Now  if  Nature  in  her  grand  fruit  creations,  thus  handi- 
capped (for  all  fruit  trees  are  now  grown  on  other  roots  than 
their  own),  has  yet  been  able  to  accomplish  horticultural  won- 
ders far  beyond  the  dreams  even  of  a  Burbank,  what  perfec- 
tion might  she  not  have  attained  had  all  her  chance  seedlings 
been  grown  from  an  Elberta  peach,  or  a  Baldwin  apple,  or 
other  fine  variety  on  its  own  roots  and  on  unbroken 
ground  ?  Just  how  far  the  latter  conditions  are  determining 


124  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

factors  in  the  general  characteristics  of  the  future  tree  grown 
from  such  seed,  we  can  not  tell,  but  the  evidence  adduced  is 
unanswerable,  that  quality  and  brighter  color  of  the  skin  are 
the  result  of  such  conditions,  while  heredity,  cross-fertiliza- 
tion and  other  influences  doubtless  determine  the  size,  shape 
and  season  of  ripening. 

For  instance,  we  have  seen  the  outcome  of  chance  seed 
on  virgin  soil  in  the  Brady  apricot,  the  Gonzalez  plum  and 
the  Baldwin  apple,  as  restored  by  Mr.  Green  to  its  original 
perfection  ;  but  suppose  those  three  trees  had  originated  on 
deeply  dug  garden  soil  and  been  cultivated  continuously 
from  year  to  year,  would  they  have  turned  out  to  be  the 
same  fruits  ?  Plainly  not,  else  the  plum  and  apple  would 
never  have  changed  their  bright  scarlet  and  golden  color  to 
a  deep,  dull  red,  or  largely  lost  their  good  eating  qualities 
under  cultivation  now.  By  all  means,  let  every  fruit-grower 
try  these  interesting  and  important  experiments  which  re- 
quire no  scientific  skill  or  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  tree- 
breeding,  planting  seed  of  selected  fruits  on  firm  soil  and 
letting  the  trees  alone,  as  well  as  putting  even  a  single  one 
of  our  finest  fruits  on  their  own  roots,  as  suggested  in  the 
chapter  on  "  Scion  and  Stock"  and  planting  the  seed.  For 
their  encouragement,  I  will  close  this  chapter  with  a  striking 
instance  of  success  here  in  Lampasas.  A  lady  friend,  during 
a  visit  to  her  old  home  in  Georgia  six  years  ago,  ate  a  large 
white  clingstone  peach  known  there  as  the  "White  Eng- 
lish," fine  for  preserving.  Wishing  a  tree  for  that  purpose 
and  thinking  it  would  reproduce  itself,  she  saved  the  seed, 
and  on  her  return  planted  it  in  her  back  yard  on  virgin  soil, 
digging  a  small  hole  with  a  garden  trowel.  It  came  up  and 
has  borne  fine  crops  every  year  since  it  began  to  fruit,  of 
extra  large  yellow  freestone  peaches,  just  like  Elberta  except 
longer  in  shape  and  ripening  just  after  it.  Here  is  what  Mr. 
Sam  Dixon,  our  superintendent  at  the  World's  Fair,  said  of 
it:  "The  'Cauthen'  peach  attracted  the  admiration  of  the 
Exposition  officials  and  was  photographed  whole  and  in  sec- 
tions." The  tree  has  never  been  cultivated,  being  in  a  chicken 
yard,  nor  ever  pruned  until  this  year,  when  the  lower  branches 


BREEDING     AND     ORIGINATION     OF     FRUITS.  125 

which  rested  on  the  ground  were  cut  away.  Shall  we  not 
have  to  go  back  to  nature  and  learn  from  the  squirrels,  who 
beat  Mr.  Patterson  growing  walnut  trees,  for  this  lady  planted 
her  peach  seed  just  as  they  did  their  walnuts. 


CHAPTER   XXV. 

Gathering,  [Marketing  and  Storing  Fruit. 

I  WILL  now  make  a  few  suggestions  to  those  who  are  with- 
out experience  as  to  marketing  a  sod  peach  crop,  drawn 
from  the  lessons  learned  last  summer  through  my  ship- 
ping experiments,  and  also  from  my  success  twelve  years  ago 
in  shipping  about  nine  thousand  bushels  of  pears  in  a  single 
season  to  northern  and  western  markets,  all  from  a  mowed 
sod.  I  would  build  my  packing-shed  with  water-proof  roof 
and  sides,  extending  to  within  four  or  five  feet  of  the  ground, 
closed  at  the  ends,  with  wide  door  in  each  to  admit  wagons  to 
pass  through.  As  my  experiments  showed  that  sod-fruit  can 
be  picked  while  yet  hard  if  well  colored,  and  ripen  up  a  good 
eating  peach,  the  pickers  should  be  instructed  to  gather  care- 
fully all  such  fruit,  as  well  as  that  full-ripe,  which  should  be 
emptied  gently  from  the  baskets  on  padded  tables.  The  pack- 
ers should  each  have  two  crates  before  them,  and  every  peach 
when  picked  up  should  be  gently  pressed  with  the  thumb,  a 
direction  never  given  to  handlers  of  cultivated  fruit,  for  it 
would  cause  rot,  but  not  on  a  sod  peach.  If  it  yields  at  all, 
showing  ripeness,  pack  it  in  one  of  the  crates,  while  all  the 
firm  ones  should  go  into  the  other.  Don't  be  afraid  such  small 
dents  will  show  or  make  a  sod  peach  rot,  for  as  a  test  I  sent 
some  such  fruit  all  the  way  to  Rochester  in  good  order.  All 
the  ripe  crates  or  baskets  should  go  to  state  and  local  markets 
or  to  the  cannery  and  evaporators,  while  the  firm  ones  are  for 
car-load  shipments.  Nail  up  all  crates  the  same  day  the  fruit 
is  picked,  but  allow  them  both,  hard  and  soft,  to  stand  over 
night  in  the  packing-shed  to  cool.  The  next  morning,  before 
day,  the  sooner  the  better,  load  on  spring-wagons,  never 
without  springs,  and  off  to  the  market  or  depot.  With  large 
crops  where  wagons  must  run  all  day,  cover  the  crates  with 
two  widths  of  matting  sewed  together,  and  strong  strings  tied 

(126) 


MARKETING     AND     STORING     FRUIT.  127 

to  the  four  corners  to  fasten  it  down.  Matting  shades  with- 
out heating  like  a  tarpaulin.  But  never  ship  peaches  the 
same  day  they  are  picked.  See  that  your  ventilated  car 
is  left  with  both  doors  open  that  night  to  cool ;  pack  as 
quickly  as  possible  in  the  morning,  closing  the  door  at 
once  and  opening  the  ventilators  at  each  end.  That  is  just 
how  I  treated  the  many  car-loads  of  ripe  sod  LeConte  pears, 
went  with  them  to  Chicago  and  saw  them  opened  up  in  per- 
fect order  at  three  o'clock  the  last  day  of  July,  the  fruit  as 
cool  as  when  it  started.  The  cars  being  double-lined  and  the 
pears  cool  when  packed,  the  slight  rise  of  temperature  dur- 
ing the  day  was  again  lowered  at  night  by  the  current  of  cool 
air  passing  from  end  to  end  through  the  ventilators. 

The  peaches  that  made  the  record-breaking  trips  last  sum- 
mer were  taken  from  the  trees  before  sunrise.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  sod-grown  peaches  picked  and  treated 
as  described,  could  be  shipped  in  ventilated  cars  all  over  the 
country  for  ten  days  with  perfect  safety.  They  will,  moreover, 
ripen  up  naturally,  be  of  far  better  quality,  and  stand  up 
much  longer  than  any  cultivated  fruit  from  refrigerator  cars. 
Of  course  sod  peaches  would  behave  as  well,  or  even  better 
in  refrigerator  cars,  and  it  would  pay  to  use  them  in  years  of 
excessive  production,  for,  if  regularly  iced,  I  believe  they 
would  hold  perfectly  for  thirty  days.  But  such  a  thing  as  over- 
production would  be  but  an  ugly  dream  of  the  past,  for  once 
the  buyers  were  assured  of  honest  packing  and  peaches  that 
would  open  up  in  perfect  order,  the  entire  crops  everywhere 
would  be  sold  upon  the  track,  at  prices  that  would  pay  the 
grower  a  good  profit,  owing  to  vastly  decreased  cost  of  pro- 
duction, and  yet  leave  the  buyer  a  very  large  margin  also.  So 
much  for  sod  peaches,  by  far  the  most  difficult  of  the  larger 
fruits  to  market  fresh,  yet  a  safe  and  easy  job  compared  to  that 
on  cultivated  trees,  which,  owing  to  loss  of  sustaining  feed- 
ing-roots, is  rushed  by  the  heat  to  sudden  and  often  premature 
ripening,  usually  not  more  than  ten  days  to  a  given  variety, 
after  which  it  drops. 

The  plum,  however,  is  much  more  easily  handled  ;  from 
sod  trees  they  can  be  picked  when  the  first  color  shows,  and 


128  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

ripen  up  with  as  good  quality  as  if  left  on  the  tree,  and  will 
also  hang  tenaciously  to  the  stem  when  ripe.  Plain  venti- 
lated cars  would  carry  them  across  the  continent  and  back  in 
good  order.  The  sod  pear  is  much  like  the  plum,  but  can  be 
picked  even  earlier.  I  have  had  LeConte  windfalls,  little 
more  than  half-grown,  if  placed  in  a  box  and  closely  covered, 
ripen  up  to  excellent  quality.  This,  however,  does  not  apply 
to  Kieffer,  which  must  be  fully  mature  and  well  colored  before 
gathering.  With  this  variety  of  pear  the  secret  of  good  qual- 
ity is  thorough  maturity  and  a  close,  confined  atmosphere. 
Never  lay  on  open  shelves  to  ripen,  but  pack  in  bulk  and 
cover  well,  and  it  will  come  out  a  juicy  and  delicious  fruit. 

I  will  now  give  some  interesting  experiments  made  on  a 
small  scale  with  apples  last  year,  and  some  now  in  progress, 
to  test  the  keeping  qualities  of  those  grown  on  trees  whose 
roots  have  not  been  disturbed.  In  November,  1904,  I  picked 
apples  so  grown,  packed  them  in  a  box,  placing  it  under  my 
house,  which  is  elevated  above  the  ground.  It  was  covered  in 
freezing  weather  with  hay  to  protect  it,  and  on  the  yth  of 
April,  1905,  they  were  all  perfectly  sound,  and  Professor  Con- 
nell,  editor  of  Farm  and  Ranch,  pronounced  the  fruit  excel- 
lent. But  I  was  not  satisfied,  for  the  apples  were  rather  dry 
and  slightly  shriveled  from  loss  of  moisture.  The  question 
then  arose,  how  to  prevent  this  and  how  to  keep  the  fruit 
cheaply  in  the  grower's  hands  through  the  winter,  with  qual- 
ity unimpared,  and  have  it  come  out  in  spring  with  capacity 
to  hold  up,  a  sound,  good  eating  apple,  until  sold.  That  this 
is  hard  to  do  with  cultivated  fruit  kept  at  a  low  temperature 
in  cold  storage  is  plain,  for  much  of  the  fruit  now,  March  29, 
exposed  for  sale,  shows  the  bad  effects  of  too  low  temperature, 
the  skin  in  places  having  the  appearance  of  scald,  after  which 
rot  quickly  follows. 

But,  as  I  said,  pondering  last  fall  over  this  problem  of 
carrying  apples  through  the  winter  cheaply,  which  must  be 
done  if  Texas  or  the  South  is  ever  to  go  into  the  business  on 
a  large  scale,  all  at  once  one  day,  I  was  carried  back  on  mem- 
ory's wings  nearly  sixty  years,  and  lived  over  again  events 
that  occurred  when  I  was  a  little  boy  at  a  large  boarding 


MARKETING    AND     STORING     FRUIT.  I2Q 

school  in  Virginia,  my  native  state.  There  were  quite  a  num- 
ber of  large  apple  orchards  in  the  country  around,  two  of 
which  were  on  very  rocky  hillsides  covered  with  grass,  and, 
being  only  about  two  miles  from  the  school,  it  was  a  common 
thing  for  several  boys  to  club  together  and  buy  one  or  more 
bushels  of  apples  at  twenty-five  cents  a  bushel,  dig  a  large, 
deep  hole  on  a  hillside  in  the  woods,  then  cover  the  bottom 
with  dry  leaves,  on  which  the  apples  were  poured  from  sacks. 
When  about  two-thirds  full,  we  drew  in  L  good  lot  more  of 
leaves,  after  which  the  hole  was  filled  with  soil,  tramped 
firmly  and  rounded  up  to  shed  the  rain.  This  primitive  cold 
storage  plant  went  by  the  name  of  an  "  apple  den,"  and  when 
finished  was  top-dressed  again  with  leaves  to  hide  it  and  left 
with  the  utmost  confidence  born  of  experience,  that  late  in 
winter  and  early  spring,  when  apples  were  scarce,  we  would 
find  ours  all  safe  and  sound.  Nor  were  we  ever  disappointed, 
for  when  we  opened  a  small  hole  on  the  lower  side,  there 
would  be  the  big  red  apples  smiling  at  us,  and  what  a  delight- 
ful odor  and  flavor  !  Once  opened,  we  would  go  every  few 
days,  fill  our  pockets  and  stick  a  wad  of  straw  in  the  hole  un- 
til the  next  visit.  I  remember  well  that  toward  the  last,  some- 
times, heavy  rains  would  wash  the  soil  down  among  the  apples 
so  that  often  they  were  so  covered  with  dirt,  when  dug,  that 
they  had  to  be  washed  before  eating  ;  and  yet  it  was  a  rare 
thing  to  find  a  rotten  apple. 

Now,  there  was  my  first  experience  with  sod  fruit,  repeated 
every  winter  regularly  for  five  years,  with  the  same  results ; 
and  little  did  I  think  that  it  was  destined  to  get  me  into  the 
fight  of  my  life  nearly  sixty  years  afterward.  So  when,  last 
November,  the  recollection  of  those  miniature  cold-storage 
houses  came  back  to  me,  the  secret  of  the  long-keeping  qual- 
ity of  the  fruit  was  plain,  and  it  occurred  to  me  to  play  school- 
boy once  more,  and  see  what  my  sod  apples  here  would  do. 
Accordingly,  I  dug  a  hole  under  my  house  in  the  moist  earth, 
about  eighteen  inches  deep,  covered  the  bottom  with  hay,  laid 
one  dozen  Terry  Winter  apples  upon  it  and  a  piece  of  stiff 
•cardboard  on  the  apples,  after  which  I  filled  the  hole  with 
loose  earth  to  keep  them  from  freezing.  That  was  in  Novem- 


130  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

her,  and  an  examination  today,  March  29,  shows  every  one  of 
the  apples  to  be  not  only  plump  and  sound,  but  of  a  delicious 
flavor  that  carries  me  back  to  the  "apple  dens"  of  yore.  In 
view  of  this  result,  why  could  not  small  growers,  everywhere 
over  the  country,  store  sod-grown  apples  in  earthen  banks  of 
twenty  or  more  bushels,  just  as  potatoes  are  kept,  the  moist 
earth  preventing  all  shriveling,  and  imparting  a  most  delight- 
ful quality?  But  still  another  suggestion  presented  itself  last 
fall,  when  I  buried  those  apples.  If  sod  fruit,  sixty  years  ago, 
kept  so  well  in  moist  earth,  why  not  place  the  moisture  in  the 
package,  whether  box  or  barrel?  So,  to  test  the  matter,  I 
soaked  a  small  box  in  water  and  placed  more  Terry  in  it,  dip- 
ping the  apples  also  in  water,  and  nailed  it  up  tight,  after 
which  it  was  covered  with  loose  dry  soil  to  prevent  freezing. 
Just  as  I  expected,  they  are  now  as  sound  and  fine  every  way 
as  the  others, — in  fact,  cannot  be  told  apart ;  and  all  of  them, 
box  and  earth  stored,  refuse  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  brown  rot  bacteria  ;  for,  though  I  inoculated  one  of  each 
lot  in  three  places,  three  weeks  ago  with  a  rotten  apple  taken 
from  a  public  fruit-stand,  not  a  single  one  "took."  But  three 
perfectly  sound-looking  apples  from  the  same  stand,  inocu- 
lated at  the  same  time,  did  "  take"  in  every  place  the  second 
day,  and  all  rotted  quickly  thereafter. 

Now,  while  these  experiments  have  been  on  a  small  scale, 
it  takes  only  one  feather  to  show  which  way  the  wind  is  blow- 
ing ;  as  it  took  but  one  falling  apple  to  suggest  the  great 
law  of  gravitation,  and  one  boiling  kettle  the  power  of  steam. 
So  these  few  apples  demonstrate,  just  as  surely  as  a  hundred 
bushels,  that  the  conditions  of  the  flesh  in  apples  grown  with 
surface  roots  entire  are  such  as  to  absolutely  prevent  the  de- 
velopment of  the  brown-rot  bacteria.  Of  course,  they  will  ul- 
timately break  down  under  the  universal  law  of  decay.  The 
second  important  fact  shown  is  that,  to  afford  such  immunity 
to  sod  apples,  it  only  requires,  at  a  guess,  a  temperature  of 
about  fifty  degrees,  while  with  cultivated  fruit  it  must  go 
nearly  to  the  freezing  point;  the  result  of  which  is  to  so  dis- 
organize the  tissues  of  the  skin  that  when  exposed  to-a  higher, 
open-air  temperature,  the  effect  known  as  "scald"  or  a  dark 


MARKETING     AND     STORING     FRUIT.  13! 

softening  of  the  surface  follows,  and  the  apple  quickly  decays. 
In  view  of  these  facts,  why  could  not  every  large  sod  orchard 
have  its  own  cheap,  double-walled  board  storage-house,  with 
chaff  or  sawdust  between  the  walls  and  overhead,  and  a  wide, 
double-lined  door  at  each  end  for  ventilation  and  chilling,  to 
be  opened  on  favorable  occasions  so  as  to  keep  the  tempera- 
ture down  to  fifty  degrees  or  lower?  The  barrels  should  be 
perfectly  tight  and  thoroughly  wet  inside  before  the  fruit  is 
placed  in  them,  and  when  packed,  ready  for  heading,  pour 
a  bucket  of  water  evenly  all  over  the  face,  so  that  it  will  trickle 
down  and  wet  all  the  apples,  thus  furnishing,  during  their 
confinement,  sufficient  moisture  to  prevent  shriveling  and 
preserve  their  flavor.  A  small  hole  in  the  bottom  will  allow 
surplus  water  to  escape. 

Of  course,  I  recommend  this  method  of  keeping  apples 
only  for  those  grown  on  sod,  though  the  following  corrobora- 
tion  which  came  today  in  The  Rural  New-Yorker  of  March 
31  shows  that  it  is  practicable  to  a  certain  extent  with  cul- 
tivated apples  in  the  colder  sections  of  the  country.  I  say 
"cultivated,"  for  the  fact  that  some  of  Mr.  Van  Orman's 
apples  rotted  is  proof  that  they  were  thus  grown. 

11  Several  years  ago  I  met  T.  B.  Van  Orman,  of  Iowa,  and,  being 
of  one  mind,  our  conversation  drifted  to  fruit.  Among  other  things 
he  said  :  '  I  keep  apples  right  up  to  May  and  June,  and  they  keep 
improving  in  flavor  all  the  time,  and  I  have  the  minimum  of  trouble 
and  loss.'  I  said:  'How  do  you  do  it,  for  I  want  to  know  and 
have  it  on  paper  ? '  He  said  :  *  Take  your  apples  as  soon  as  gath- 
ered. Get  good,  tight  barrels  or  boxes  ;  line  the  bottom  and  sides 
with  paper,  then,  with  a  vessel  of  water  by  your  side  and  a  pile  of 
paper,  take  the  sound  apples  without  worms  or  bruises,  dip  each  one 
in  the  water  and  wrap  it  in  a  piece  of  paper,  and  place  in  the  box  or 
barrel;  and  place  also  a  sheet  of  paper  between  each  layer  of  fruit. 
When  the  box  or  barrel  is  full,  head  or  nail  up  tight.  They  can  be 
kept  almost  anywhere  except  in  a  warm  place.  I  usually  place  mine 
against  the  north  side  of  the  house,  and  throw  some  old  trash  or 
carpets  over  the  barrels  and  let  them  go.  If  one  rots  it  will  not  affect 
the  rest,  and  the  flavor  grows  better  to  the  end.  I  never  open  a  box 
or  barrel  until  I  take  it  in  for  use.  Have  kept  them  in  this  manner 
for  the  last  ten  years.  My  first  experiment  was  with  leaves,  but  they 
affected  the  flavor  somewhat.'  If  this  experiment  is  true,  and  it  will 
cost  very  little  to  try  it,  the  keeping  of  apples  for  the  family  is 
solved,  and  will  be  as  great  a  boon  as  water  glass  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  fresh  eggs.  I  would  leave  at  least  one  package  where  it  would 


132  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

freeze,  not  in  the  open  air  or  uncovered,  to  learn  the  effect.  Let  a. 
hundred  try  the  experiment,  and  something  good  may  come  from  Mr. 
Van  Orman's  experiments  and  experience. 

C.  W.  KEIFER,  Kansas." 

Notice  that  his  fruit,  like  mine,  improved  in  flavor  all  the 
time,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  following  testimony  of 
Professor  Connell,  of  Farm  and  Ranch,  and  E.  W.  Kirk- 
patrick,  to  whom  I  sent  specimens  for  trial.  Writing  of 
them,  the  editor  says,  under  date  of  March  22:  "Your 
apples  were  firm,  sound  and  good.  Several  persons  tasted 
them  and  declared  they  were  better  than  any  cold-storage 
apples  on  the  Dallas  market."  E.  W.  Kirkpatrick,  who  was 
present  and  also  ate  of  them,  wrote  me  as  follows  :  "Your 
apple  was  most  delicious,  equal  to  the  Northern  Spy  and  a 
better  keeper.  If  we  can  grow  and  keep  our  apples  like 
yours,  there  will  be  great  profit  in  it." 

I  omitted  to  say  above  that  my  suggestion  of  opening  the 
doors  of  the  cold-storage  house  at  night  for  chilling  pur- 
poses, applies  only  to  the  southern  or  warmer  part  of  the 
country,  there  being  no  trouble  to  keep  the  temperature 
down  farther  north. 

And  now  just  two  orange  "  feathers  "  for  Florida  and  Cali- 
fornia. Soon  after  the  war,  before  Texas  had  railway  connec- 
tion with  the  world,  I  saw  my  friend,  Henry  Rosenberg,  the 
Galveston  philanthropist,  pack  in  the  fall  several  barrels  of 
beautiful  oranges  from  large  trees  growing  on  his  well-kept 
Bermuda  grass  lawn,  for  shipment  to  relatives  in  Baltimore, 
sending  them  by  way  of  New  York,  in  the  hot  hold  of  one  of 
the  old-time  side-wheel  steamers.  It  must  have  taken  two 
weeks  to  make  the  trip.  He  told  me  afterwards  that  he  was 
greatly  surprised  the  next  spring,  on  visiting  his  friends,  to 
find  some  of  his  oranges  still  on  hand  and  in  excellent  con- 
dition. The  other  "feather"  is  that  about  the  same  time  I 
was  in  an  old  Italian's  grove  of  about  fifty  orange  trees,  also 
in  Galveston,  all  of  which  were  trimmed  up  to  clean,  straight 
bodies  six  or  seven  feet  high,  not  in  sod,  for  the  grass  had 
been  shaded  out,  but  uncultivated.  I  was  admiring  the 
beautiful  trees  with  their  branches  bending  under  the  load 


MARKETING     AND     STORING     FRUIT.  133 

of  fruit,  when  the  old  man  remarked,  "  It's  all  very  pretty,  but 
all  wrong.  Come  with  me,"  and  he  led  the  way  to  the  farthest 
corner  of  his  grove,  and  there,  with  its  lower  branches  lying 
on  the  ground,  also  covered  with  the  finest  fruit,  stood  an 
enormous  orange  bush,  as  it  appeared  to  me,  with  its  great 
round  head  thickly  studded  all  over  with  oranges.  '  'Now, "  said 
the  old  man,  "  that's  the  way  to  grow  oranges,  and  were  I  plant- 
ing another  grove  I  would  never  put  a  knife  to  the  trees. 
That  tree  was  a  chance  seedling  which  came  up  there,  and 
has  never  had  a  twig  cut  off."  I  opened  the  wall  of  leaves  and 
fruit  to  see  how  it  looked  inside.  To  my  surprise,  there  was 
not  a  leaf  in  the  interior,  nothing  but  the  bare  limbs  and 
smaller  branches,  all  the  twigs  dried  up  and  gone,  pruned  by 
the  dense  shade. 

A  few  years  later,  a  freeze  came  along,  peeling  the  bark 
from  the  tall  straight  bodies  and  killing  every  tree  in  the  grove 
except  the  big  bush  down  in  the  corner.  It  stood  all  the  at- 
tacks of  Jack  Frost  until  1886,  when  the  thermometer  fell  to 
five  degrees  above  zero,  freezing  Galveston  Bay  over,  when 
the  big  bush  was  killed,  root  and  branch.  I  will  here  say  that 
no  tree  takes  more  kindly  to  root-pruning  than  the  orange. 
If  the  roots  are  cut  back  to  stubs  an  inch  or  less  long,  and  the 
body  to  about  a  foot  after  planting,  ground  well  rammed  and 
tree  let  alone  forever  after,  the  big  bush  will  be  duplicated, 
for  such  a  tree  is  practically  a  seed,  and  will  reestablish  it- 
self on  several  deep,  strong  tap-roots  instead  of  on  one,  like  a 
seed. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

The  Pecan. 

IN  the  former  edition  of  the  book,  I  had  very  little  to  say 
about  nut-growing,  as  at  that  time  no  interest  was  taken 
in  the  subject ;  but  the  case  is  very  different  now.  While 
the  recent  successful  fruiting,  by  Mr.  G.  A.  Schattenberg,  of 
Boerne,  Texas,  of  the  English  walnut  budded  on  the  wild 
Mexican  variety,  so  common  in  west  Texas,  opens  a  wide 
field  for  experiment  with  that  valuable  nut,  the  native  pecan 
offers  opportunity  for  profitable  investment  in  the  South 
that  cannot  be  surpassed.  Of  course,  many  exaggerated 
statements  as  to  immediate  profits  and  entire  immunity  of 
the  tree  and  nuts  from  insect  pests,  as  well  as  the  certainty 
of  annual  crops,  are  going  the  rounds  of  the  papers,  and  the 
intending  pecan-grower  should  inform  himself  well  before 
going  into  the  business  ;  but,  discounting  all  these,  a  pecan 
grove  of  improved  varieties  will,  in  time,  say  ten  or  fifteen 
years,  undoubtedly  pay  good  and  constantly  increasing 
profits.  Or  the  quicker  method  of  sawing  off  large  trees 
from  6  to  10  feet  above  the  ground,  allowing  all  shoots  to 
grow  the  first  year  and  budding  three  or  more  of  them  the 
following  season,  can  be  adopted  with  great  success.  All 
those  having  natural  groves  will  find  in  the  various  bulletins 
issued  from  Washington,  and  also  by  the  State  Experiment 
stations,  the  necessary  information  of  how  to  top-bud  such 
trees,  so  I  will  confine  my  remarks  entirely  to  establishing 
new  groves.  In  so  doing  the  two  all-important  points  are, 
first,  how  to  prepare  and  plant  the  trees,  and  second,  how 
and  where  to  get  young  trees  grown  from  bearing  ones,  thus 
ensuring  earlier  fruiting  by  many  years  than  if  trees  grown 
from  young  nursery  ones  are  used.  There  is  also  good 
evidence  to  prove  that  the  varieties  so  successful  in  the 
alluvial  soils  of  the  Mississippi  valley  and  in  the  moist 

(i34) 


THE     PECAN. 


'35 


climate  of  the  South  Atlantic  states  are  not  adapted  to  the 
drier  climate  and  more  elevated  lands  of  Texas. 

Were  I  planting  a  pecan  grove  in  this  state,  if  I  could 
not  get  native  budded  trees  that  were  every  way  satisfactory, 
I  would  either  set  common  seedlings,  treating  them  as 
shown  hereafter,  or  plant  the  nuts  where  they  were  to  stand, 
and  bud  them  the  third  year  or  later,  from  the  best  Texas 
bearing  trees.  Common  trees,  from  one  to  four  years  old, 
or  even  older,  can  be  used.  A  German  newcomer,  some 
years  ago,  planted  near  here  pecan  trees  about  six  inches 
in  diameter,  to  the  amusement  of  the  old-timers,  and  every 
one  grew.  He  dug  them  with  short  side  roots  and  cut  the 
deep  ones  about  a  foot  below 
the  surface  and  planted  them 
deep,  ramming  just  like  a  fence 
post  after  watering  well.  All 
transplanted  trees  should  be 
cultivated  thoroughly  for  four 
or  five  years  and  fertilized,  un- 
less the  soil  is  rich.  The  latter 
is  especially  necessary  where 
young  trees  or  nuts  are  planted 
in  peach  or  other  orchards  that 
are  in  mowed  sod.  I  will  now 
give  the  proper  method  and 
best  form  of  tree  to  be  used. 

The  accompanying  illustra- 
tion shows  two  pecan  trees  ex- 
hibited by  me  at  the  recent 
convention  of  the  National  Nut 
Growers'  Association,  in  Dal- 
las, Texas.  The  tree  on  the  left 
was  planted  with  about  two 
feet  of  the  taproot,  in  a  hole 
deep  enough  to  receive  it  in  its  natural  position.  The 
hole  was  then  filled  with  pulverized  surface  soil  and  well 
rammed.  The  smaller  tree  on  the  right  was  root-pruned  to 
four  inches  and  planted  in  a  dibble-hole  about  eight  inches 


136  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

deep  and  also  well  rammed.  The  trees  stood  about  three 
feet  apart,  were  set  on  April  2,  1905,  and  the  tops  of  both 
cut  back  to  about  six  inches.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  tree 
with  the  long  root,  though  larger,  made  less  top  than  the 
other  and  emitted  only  small,  fibrous  surface  roots,  the  lower 
two-thirds  of  the  taproot  being  entirely  bare,  showing  that 
the  tree  failed  to  appreciate  my  leaving  so  much  taproot. 
The  other  tree,  as  will  be  seen,  at  once  struck  several  deep 
roots  from  the  lower  end,  the  roots  being  stronger  ones  than 
those  from  the  other  tree.  Unfortunately,  the  strongest  of 
these  new  taproots  was  broken  in  digging  the  tree. 

Now,  in  view  of  this  plain  proof  that  the  pecan  prefers 
to  re-establish  itself  on  a  new  set  of  taproots  after  short 
root-pruning,  are  not  our  horticultural  pecan  scientists  doing 
inexperienced  growers,  as  well  as  themselves,  a  great  injus- 
tice in  planting,  and  advising  others  to  plant,  pecan  trees  in 
holes  thirty  inches  deep  and  thirty  inches  wide,  as  was 
advised  by  one  of  our  pecan  authorities  at  the  Dallas 
convention  ? 

I  take  it  that  every  one  knows  that  a  pecan  tree  produced 
from  a  nut  will,  in  the  end,  make  a  much  more  vigorous 
growth  than  a  tree  transplanted  with  long  roots.  Hence,  in 
cutting  back  the  top  and  root,  as  practiced  on  the  smaller 
tree,  it  is  plain  that  I  reduced  it  practically  to  the  condition 
of  a  nut,  the  distinguishing  feature  of  which  is  its  ability  to 
strike  a  deep  taproot,  with  the  difference,  however,  that 
the  root-pruned  tree  struck  several  such  roots  instead  of  one, 
and  is  capable  of  reproducing  itself  with  a  certain  variety  of 
nut,  which  the  planted  pecan  scarcely  ever  does.  Another 
fact  brought  out  by  the  above  experiment  is,  that  it  is  simply 
a  waste  of  money  to  subsoil,  or  to  dig  deep  holes,  for  the 
penetrating  power  of  a  root-pruned  pecan  tree,  like  the  nut, 
is  almost  incredible,  the  subsoil  under  the  smaller  tree  hav- 
ing been  a  compact,  hardpan  clay  about  one  foot  under  the 
ground.  Of  course,  I  do  not  expect  the  orthodox  pecan 
scientists  to  be  convinced  by  the  above  facts,  for  with  them 
facts  cut  no  figure  if  the  authorities  advise  to  the  contrary; 
but  I  believe  that  a  great  many  of  the  plain  growers,  who 


THE     PECAN.  137 

are  looking  for  the  truth,  will  be  convinced,  at  least  so  far 
as  to  test  the  matter,  which  the  scientist  never  does.  The 
"good  old  way"  is  always  good  enough  for  him  even  if  it 
does  cost  five  times  as  much  and  gives  inferior  trees. 

The  foregoing  remarks  on  the  pecan  were  written  several 
days  before  the  recent  freeze  of  March  20,  and  the  book  was 
ready  for  the  printer;  but  after  the  fall  of  the  thermometer 
to  20  degrees,  a  thing  unknown  this  late  for  many  years,  I 
concluded  to  wait  and  give  its  effects  as  a  guide  to  the 
hardiness  of  the  various  kinds  of  fruit.  I  have  spent  the  last 
few  days  examining  fruit  trees  in  yards  and  orchards  around 
Lampasas,  and  noticed  some  interesting  and  important 
things.  First,  as  to  the  relative  ability  of  sod  and  cultivated 
trees  to  retain  their  fruit  after  such  a  freeze,  I  find  that 
today,  April  i,  as  far  as  I  know,  there  is  not  an  Elberta  tree 
around  here  that  has  a  single  peach  on  it,  where  it  has  been 
cultivated.  My  sod  Elberta  suffered  worse  than  most  other 
kinds,  but  has  a  good  one-fourth  of  a  crop,  while  the  two 
rows  of  old  Elberta  shown  on  page  115,  have  about  as  much  ; 
but  the  tree  by  which  I  am  standing  is  so  full  that  it  ought 
to  be  thinned,  though  it  will  not  be,  as  the  owner,  a  lady, 
has  confidence  in  its  ability  to  mature  it  all  to  good  size. 
And  I  also  believe  it  will,  for,  appreciating  its  noble  services 
in  the  cause  of  truth  and  progress  last  summer  (it  being 
the  tree  that  bore  the  Rochester  peaches),  last  winter  I 
top-dressed  the  ground  around  it  and  the  two  trees  beyond 
in  both  rows,  very  heavily  with  muriate  of  potash  and  old- 
time  Peruvian  guano,  a  new  deposit  of  which  has  been 
recently  discovered  in  the  Pacific  ocean  and  is  now  offered 
for  sale  by  Edmund  Mortimer  &  Co.,  13  William  street, 
New  York.  The  effect  has  been  most  remarkable,  for  all  the 
fertilized  trees  are  heavily  loaded,  while  the  balance  have  a 
very  moderate  crop  and  several  trees  very  few  peaches. 
Now,  here  is  an  effect  just  the  opposite  of  what  I  expected, 
for  I  had  noticed  before  the  freeze  how  vigorously  the  shoots 
on  those  trees  were  pushing  and  their  enormous  bloom,  and 
the  night  of  the  freeze  I  thought  of  them  and  felt  sure  they 
would  lose  all  their  fruit,  the  sap  being  in  such  a  vigorous 


138  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

flow.  But  it  seems  that  any  such  tenderness  was  far  more 
than  compensated  for  by  the  abundant  supply  of  food  given 
them,  just  where  the  greedy  little  surface  roots  could  best 
appropriate  it,  thus  enabling  the  trees  to  resist  the  action  of 
the  freeze  and  retain  their  fruit.  Could  there  be  a  stronger 
demonstration  of  the  necessity  for  letting  those  roots  alone  ? 
Of  course  we  are  not  "out  of  the  woods,"  for,  while  the 
little  peaches  have  shed  their  blooms  and  look  all  right, 
some  bad  effect  of  such  a  freeze  may  yet  show  up,  though  I 
don't  believe  it.  If,  however,  these  four  trees  mature  their 
crops,  is  not  the  problem  of  damage  to  this  grand  peach 
from  late  frosts,  to  which  it  is  more  subject  than  any  other 
variety,  entirely  solved  ?  Certainly,  at  least  with  sod  treat- 
ment, and  if  so  every  peach-growing  community  in  Texas 
should  send  a  representative  to  Lampasas  in  July  to  see  this 
object-lesson  which  will  be  worth  so  much  to  Texas  and  the 
South.  I  will  give  the  result  in  Farm  and  Ranch  when  all 
danger  of  dropping  is  over. 

But  those  forty  Elbertas  are  only  a  part  of  about  600 
other  peach  and  plum  trees  of  many  kinds,  nearly  all  of 
which  are  loaded.  Another  sod  orchard  on  the  other  side  of 
the  town,  of  about  400  trees,  seems,  to  be  in  just  as  good 
condition,  while  all  the  sod  seedlings  and  transplanted  trees 
around  town,  except  Elberta,  are  actually  overloaded. 
There  are  but  two  large,  thoroughly  cultivated  orchards  near 
Lampasas,  with  the  owner  of  one  of  which  I  talked  yester- 
day, who  told  me  his  whole  crop  was  gone.  The  owner  of 
the  other  told  a  friend  of  mine  that  he  "would  not  have  a 
peach  unless  some  of  the  stray  blossoms  now  appearing  set." 

Now,  as  to  the  relative  hardiness  of  varieties  under 
such  a  freeze.  Of  the  improved  kinds,  Arp  Beauty,  Annie 
Williams  and  Alexander  are  too  full,  while  Chilow,  Stump, 
Wheeler,  Dewey,  Carman,  Sneed  and  Rivers  have  good 
crops;  Triumph,  Victor,  Crosby,  Frances,  Dulce,  Pond's 
Late,  Tarbell,  Rogers  and  Mamie  Ross,  from  a  few  peaches 
to  none  at  all.  Of  native  seedlings,  standing  in  various 
yards  around  in  Bermuda  sod,  which  I  have  named  and  all 
of  which  are  loaded,  I  will  mention  the  Harris,  large,  snow- 


THE     PECAN.  139 

white  cling  with  faint  blush,  middle  of  August ;  Connell, 
the  peach  Kirkpatrick  carried  from  here  on  September  14 
and  ate  three  weeks  later  in  Portland,  Oregon,  a  very  large 
yellow  cling  with  red  cheek  ;  Lampasas,  white  freestone 
with  red  cheek,  medium  size  and  ripens  just  with  Connell, 
both  hanging  until  the  middle  of  October ;  Adams,  the 
largest  late  peach,  cling,  white  flesh  and  red  cheek,  middle 
of  October  to  middle  of  November.  All  of  these  seedlings 
have  very  small  seeds  and  are  of  fine  quality  except  Adams, 
which  is  fine  for  preserving  but  too  late  to  be  of  best  quality. 
Believing  that  these  seedlings,  which  are  now  all  full  and 
have  never  missed  a  crop,  are  worthy  of  propagation,  I  will 
send  buds  this  season  free  to  the  following  nurserymen,  who 
will  doubtless  grow  them  for  sale :  The  Texas  Nursery 
Company,  Sherman;  F.  W.  Malley,  Garrison;  Jno.  F. 
Sneed,  Tyler ;  J.  F.  Leyendecker,  Freylsburg  ;  F.  T. 
Ramsey,  Austin ;  G.  A.  Schattenburg,  Boerne ;  E.  Knox, 
San  Antonio;  Orr  Nursery  Co.,  Arp,  and  Fernando  Miller, 
Lampasas,  all  of  Texas.  I  omitted  mentioning  the  "Cauthen" 
peach  referred  to  in  a  previous  chapter,  which  will  also  be 
sent,  but  I  cannot  furnish  the  general  public. 

The  Japanese  plums  have  little  fruit  except  Shiro,  which 
has  a  fair  crop.  All  the  Americana  and  Chickasaw  varieties 
have  enough.  Of  thirteen  varieties  of  apricots,  which  usu- 
ally bear  well,  only  two  have  any  fruit  left,  the  Berzetti  and 
Montgamet,  both  highly  esteemed  California  kinds,  which 
still  have  considerable  fruit  on  them,  the  former  being  the 
last  of  all  to  bloom  and  having  the  most  fruit.  Cuttings  of 
these  two  apricots  will  also  be  sent  to  the  nurserymen  named. 
I  will  now  close  this  review  with  a  letter  just  received  from 
W.  W.  Durham,  of  the  Austin  Sod  Experiment  Station, 
dated  March  30. 

«'H.  M.  STRINGFELLOW. 

Dear  Sir. — I  met  three  cultivating  orchardists  today,  one  of 
whom,  Mr.  Rutledge,  of  apple  fame,  lives  nine  miles  north  of  Austin, 
who  told  me  that  he  had  killed  most  of  his  orchard  by  plowing,  and 
what  was  left  had  been  totally  killed  by  the  recent  freeze.  Mr. 
Weaver,  owner  of  the  800  peach  trees  that  lost  their  crop  last  year 
by  the  February  freeze,  has  now  lost  it  all  again.  Mr.  Rutledge 


140  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

says  that  all  the  fruit  except  apples  is  gone  in  his  section.  I  went 
through  my  orchard  again  today  and  find  that  I  have  lots  of  peaches 
on  my  trees.  Yours  truly, 

W.  W.  DURHAM." 

Mr.  Durham  is  a  cotton  buyer  of  Austin,  who,  with  no 
experience,  had  the  foresight  and  sound  judgment  to  see 
the  great  truths  of  the  New  Horticulture  when  laid  before 
him,  and  the  nerve  to  go  out,  drive  holes  in  the  virgin  sod, 
in  3-foot  hoed  circles,  and  plant  1,000  close  root-pruned 
fruit  trees  six  years  ago,  to  the  great  amusement  of  his 
neighbors.  They  laughed  then,  but  he  laughs  now.  To  him 
and  the  following  progressive  journals  which  have  from  time 
to  time  opened  their  columns  to  a  free  discussion  of  the 
New  Horticulture  and  given  it  kindly  consideration,  I  feel 
under  lasting  obligations.  Except  for  them,  its  principles 
would  have  made  slow  headway.  The  names  of  these 
unprejudiced  journals  are  the  Practical  Fruit-Grower  of 
Missouri,  the  Rural  New-  Yorker,  Country  Gentleman  and 
American  Fruits  of  New  York,  the  Pacific  Fruit  World  of 
California,  the  Peach  and  Truck  Grower  of  Georgia,  the 
Southern  Fruit  Grower  of  Tennessee  and  the  Florida  Agri- 
culturist of  Florida,  as  well  as  the  general  press  of  Texas. 
The  one  exception  to  this  fair  treatment  of  so  important  a 
subject  has  been  the  National  Nurseryman  of  Rochester, 
N.  Y. ,  whose  editor,  Professor  Craig,  has  taken  every 
opportunity  to  ridicule  and  condemn  the  book  and  its  prin- 
ciples, and  several  months  ago  published  an  attack  on  my 
truth  and  fair  dealing  by  a  sneaking  correspondent  of  Texas, 
who  wrote  him  that  my  trees  were  cultivated  and  not  a  sod 
orchard  at  all.  This  was  because  a  space  of  about  one  foot 
from  the  trees  is  kept  clean  to  prevent  damage  to  the  bodies 
by  the  mowing  machine.  To  this  attack  friend  Kirkpatrick, 
who  has  visited  me  several  times,  kindly  replied,  giving  the 
facts  as  stated. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Conclusion. 

AND  now,  in  closing  this  little  volume  on  vegetables  and 
trees,  their  management  and  diseases,  I  wish  to  say 
that  I  am  well  aware  that  it  invites  and  will  receive 
contempt  from  some,  and  perhaps  sharp  criticism  from 
others.  When,  years  ago,  I  first  announced  the  facts  in 
regard  to  close  root-pruning,  quite  a  number  of  horticultur- 
ists assailed  me  promptly,  both  in  Texas  and  other  states, 
and  by  argument  proved  conclusively  to  their  own  satisfac- 
tion that  the  thing  could  not  be  true — and  many,  doubtless, 
think  so  yet.  But  the  root-pruned  tree  has  come  at  last,  and 
to  stay.  Still,  so  slow,  indeed,  are  men  to  lay  aside  old 
prejudices  and  adopt  new  methods,  that  years  may  pass 
before  the  hoary  old  fallacies  of  big  holes,  deep  prepara- 
tion, fall  and  winter  plowing  and  pruning,  as  well  as  expen- 
sive summer  cultivation,  are  laid  away  to  rest  in  the  museum 
of  antiquated  and  mistaken  ideas,  alongside  the  notion  that 
the  sun  went  around  the  world.  They  have  caused  not  only 
a  waste  of  much  money  but  a  world  of  useless  labor,  as  well 
as  bitter  disappointment  and  blighted  hopes,  and  to-day,  on 
hill  and  in  dale,  scattered  everywhere,  stunted,  sickly  and 
dying  fruit  trees  bear  evidence  of  their  deadly  work.  How- 
ever, though  reform  has  always  been  slow,  and  though  the  Pil- 
grim Progress  has  ever  had  to  travel  rough  and  thorny  paths, 
wade  through  the  mire  of  captious  criticism,  climb  with 
toiling  step  and  slow  the  steep  and  rugged  sides  of  great 
Mountain  Doubt,  and  ever  and  anon  strike  down  with  the  club 
of  Fact  the  lusty  giants  Conservatism  and  Authority  that  block 
his  way — yet  in  the  end  he  always  gets  there  just  the  same, 
and  waves  his  banner  from  the  mountain  top.  And  so,  some 
time  in  the  coming  future,  the  mowing  machine  will  replace 
the  cultivator  and  the  plow.  Our  close  root-pruned  trees 

(141) 


142  THE      NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

will  stand  on  well-kept  lawns,  or  in  pastured  lots,  where, 
yearly  fed  with  proper  food  and  sprayed,  their  sturdy  limbs, 
clothed  with  dark  foliage  of  healthy  green,  will  bend  beneath 
their  loads  of  perfect  fruit,  while  yellows,  blight,  root-tumor 
and  black-knot  will  be  but  ugly  recollections  of  the  past. 
That  with  rational,  natural  treatment  all  this  is  possible,  will 
be  seen  from  the  two  following  quotations  from  the  January 
issue  of  Green1  s  Fruit- Grower,  published  in  the  heart  of  the 
great  fruit  belt  of  Western  New  York.  Mr.  L.  B.  Pierce, 
writing  of  the  ''Summer  Rambo"  apple,  says: 

We  have  a  tree  standing  over  the  south  kitchen  door  that  is  about 
twenty  years  old,  from  a  root-graft,  and  spreads  forty  feet,  and  is 
thirty  feet  high.  Last  year  it  was  the  only  one  on  the  place  that 
bore  apples  smooth  and  large  enough  to  use.  This  tree  bore  about 
three  bushels,  and  furnished  pie  timber  for  about  two  months.  The 
entire  apple  crop  on  four  hundred  other  trees  [presumably  long- 
rooted,  etc. — H.  M.  s.]  was  less  than  a  bushel.  This  year  this  tree 
is  bending  beneath  its  load  of  fruit,  and  about  the  middle  of  August 
I  was  obliged  to  pick  a  part  to  relieve  the  burden.  The  apples  were 
at  that  date  as  large  as  Baldwins  and  partially  colored,  and  sold 
readily  at  twenty  cents  a  peck.  The  tree  should  be  planted  in  a 
sheltered  place  and  the  ground  strewed  with  straw,  as  the  apples 
ripen  gradually,  and,  being  large  and  heavy,  drop  and  bruise. 

The  editor,  Mr.  Chas.  E.  Green,  in  another  place,  writes : 

I  know  of  a  Baldwin  apple  tree  located  at  the  rear  of  the  kitchen, 
near  the  house  drain,  where  its  roots  received  weekly  ablutions  from 
the  wash  tubs.  I  do  not  dare  to  state  the  annual  yield  of  this  tree, 
for  it  was  beyond  belief  [probably  another  root-graft  or  seedling — 
H.  M.  s.].  I  have  two  apple  trees  in  Rochester  near  an  old  hen-house, 
on  the  rich  soil  of  which  the  roots  feed  ;  also  two  located  near  my 
stable.  These  trees  seldom  fail  to  bear  crops  of  fine  fruit,  though 
the  soil  is  not  cultivated. 

Presumably  all  the  latter  trees  were  seedlings,  as  people 
do  not  set  two  apple  trees  in  a  place  as  were  those  near  the 
hen-house — or  usually  plant  two  near  a  stable.  I  leave  these 
nuts  for  my  long  root,  big  hole,  deep  plowing,  summer  culti- 
vating readers  to  crack. 

Duplicates  of  such  root-graft  or  seedling  trees  are  stand- 
ing all  over  the  country.  Will  not  some  advocate  of  the 
above-named  methods  explain  fully,  and  give  us  the  whys 
and  wherefores  of  the  strange  fact  that  everywhere,  the  world 
over,  fruit  trees  show  such  partiality  for  houses? 


CONCLUSION.  143 

I  have  introduced  the  accompanying  cut  (page  144)  of  a 
one-year  apple  tree,  grown  from  a  root-graft  last  season,  and 
although  the  engraving  from  the  photograph  shows  only  a 
small  portion  of  the  roots,  it  will  be  seen  that  they  are  all 
strong  and  perpendicular,  and  probably  penetrated  in  one 
season  deeper  than  the  top  is  high.  But  are  there  any  other 
causes  for  the  phenomenal  success  of  this  representative 
apple  tree,  standing  on  hard,  uncultivated  ground  ?  I  will 
here  quote  an  extract  from  a  critic  of  mine  in  Texas  Farm  and 
Ranch,  who  undertook  to  answer  this  question,  and  suggests 
that,  first,  "the  soil  near  a  dwelling  is  likely  to  be  rich,  deep 
and  full  of  vegetable  matter  j"  and  secondly,  that  "the  noise, 
smoke  and  smell  of  a  human  habitation  tend  to  drive  harmful 
insects  from  nearby  fruit  trees."  Possibly  some  one  may  add 
that  the  slops  and  wash-water  from  the  kitchen  played  an  im- 
portant part.  As  to  the  first  statement,  is  it  a  fact  that  such 
was  likely  true  ?  I  see  no  reason  why,  but  if  so,  what  part 
would  so  small  and  circumscribed  an  area  play  in  developing 
the  last  full  crop  on  a  tree  with  a  forty-feet  diameter  of  head 
and  lateral  feeding  roots,  certainly  covering,  at  a  small  esti- 
mate, one  hundred  feet  in  diameter?  I  have  traced  oak  roots, 
in  a  field  near  a  wood,  that  far  in  a  single  direction,  and 
found  them  still  travelling.  His  second  statement  is  abso- 
lutely unfounded  in  fact,  for  we  all  know  that  screens  are 
everywhere  a  necessity  to  keep  out  the  swarms  of  beetles, 
candle-bugs  and  moths  of  every  kind  that,  drawn  by  the  lights, 
flock  to  our  houses  after  dark.  The  live  oaks  here  in  Galves- 
ton  are  much  worse  eaten  by  the  canker  worms  near  the 
electric  lights  than  farther  away.  Thirdly,  as  to  the  wash- 
water  and  kitchen  slops,  in  this  day  of  cleanliness  and  sewer 
drains,  it  is  hardly  likely  that  Mr.  Pierce  allows  such  things 
to  be  thrown  around  his  house,  and  if  he  did,  as  the  tree  stood 
at  the  back  door,  its  feeding  roots  were  far  removed,  and 
would  receive  small  benefit  from  such  applications  near  the 
trunk. 

But  let  us  examine  a  little  farther  into  the  facts  concern- 
ing this  apple  tree.  It  is  not  only  of  remarkable  size  for  its 
age  and  neglect,  but  seems  ordinarily  to  bear  enormous  crops, 


144 


THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 


ROOT-GRAFT—NATURAL  SIZK. 


1  REE  ONE   YEAR   OI-D,   FROM 
ROOT-GRAFT. 


CONCLUSION.  145 

and  the  fruit,  though  immature  and  only  partially  colored, 
was,  without  thinning,  as  "large  as  Baldwins,"  and  Mr.  Pierce 
suggests  a  sheltered  place  to  protect  its  wonderful  crops,  and 
also  a  mulch  of  straw  to  save  the  "large  and  heavy  apples  " 
from  bruising  when  they  fall.  Remembering  that  results 
come  only  from  adequate  causes,  and  not  by  chance,  is  there 
any  adequate  cause  for  the  regular  and  abundant  crops  on 
this  tree,  except  that  it  had  struck  its  several  tap-roots,  as 
shown  in  the  cut  (page  144),  deep  down  to  permanent  moist- 
ure, and  that  its  surface  roots  were  left  entirely  undisturbed? 

I  will  now  bring  this  chapter  and  the  book  to  a  close,  sub- 
mitting it  to  the  serious  consideration  of  fruit-growers  all  over 
the  world,  for  its  principles  are  of  universal  application. 

There  is  not  a  single  really  important  operation  of  our 
modern  orchards,  starting  with  the  form  of  tree,  character  of 
ground  preparation,  planting  of  the  tree,  and  its  after-treat- 
ment, all  through  its  poor,  persecuted  life,  that  is  not  a  plain 
violation  of  nature's  methods,  by  which  she  grows  trees  so 
far  superior  to  ours  that  any  but  a  blind  man  must  stand 
abashed  at  the  comparison.  Being  so  revolutionary,  The 
New  Horticulture  has  met  with  determined  opposition  and 
ridicule  from  a  large  majority  of  the  Professors,  Horticultural 
Scientists  and  Experiment  Stations,  who  seem  to  be  bound 
with  the  strong  chains  of  prejudice,  Prometheus  like,  upon 
the  rock  of  blind  conservatism.  They  will  not  experiment 
fairly,  and  yet  condemn.  While  there  are  other  honorable 
exceptions  to  this  charge,  I  will  close  with  two  quotations, 
the  first  from  Prof.  T.  L.  Brunk's  bulletin,  issued  from  the 
Maryland  Experiment  Station  sixteen  years  ago,  in  which, 
with  prophetic  vision,  he  says  : 

"I  believe  I  am  safe  in  stating  that  these  methods  of  treating 
trees  are  destined  to  supplant  old  methods  to  a  large  extent,  and  with 
a  larger  range  of  species  and  varieties  than  has  yet  been  tried,  and 
that  they  have  a  number  of  important  advantages  over  old  methods 
which  will  give  a  new  stimulus  to  fruit-growing  and  result  in  a  new 
system  of  training  and  after-treatment  of  orchards." 

That  he  was  a  true  prophet  is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
thousands  of  progressive  men  everywhere  have  planted,  and 
still  are  planting,  root-pruned  orchards,  and  putting  them 


146  THE     NEW     HORTICULTURE. 

down  to  mowed  sod  when  in  bearing.  The  other  quotation 
is  from  a  bulletin  issued  by  Prof.  H.  N.  Starnes,  of  the  Geor- 
gia Experiment  Station  seven  years  ago,  which  concludes  as 
follows  : 

"Whether  or  not  Stringfellow's  methods  ultimately  become  uni- 
versally adopted,  they  can  not,  in  view  of  the  various  successful  tests 
in  which  they  have  figured,  be  any  longer  criticised  as  visionary  or 
ridiculous,  and  so  dismissed.  The  Stringfellow  theories  have  now  gone 
beyond  this  point,  and  must  be  treated  with  the  respect  which  their 
grave  importance  to  the  fruit-growers  demands." 


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